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TH E 



Poetical and Prose Writings 

P 

THE MILFORD BARD, 



C ONSISTING F 



Sketches in Poetry and Prose, 



WITH A 



portrait af lljt ^utljor anh a $kU\} nf l)is §\ft 



1 a ^ • ?3 



s, m ,«, _ <j,^ gj,. 



BALTIMORE: 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN MURPHY & CO, 

JVo. 178 Market Street. 

WILMINGTON: J. T. HEALD. 

Sold by Booksellers generaUij. 
18 5 3. 






Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1852, 

By JOHN MURPHY & CO. 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maryland. 



AS 
TO THE LADIES OP BALTIMORE, 

WHO HAD 

SHOWN KINDNESS TO THE BARD IN SICKNESS, 
AND UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES OF APfLICTION, 

AND 
TO WHOSE SOLICITATIONS HE YIKLDED IN ITS tUBLlC ATIONy 



d\) nJiMwiAl 'Say 



WAS MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELt 

DEDICATED 

BY THEIR OBLIGED AND DEVOTED FRIENDj 



c_vv^ <:_^-:^^'^!^4-€y ycy-e^4ty 



SO 

TO THE SAME, 

ASSOCIATED WITH 

WHO WERE NO LESS ATTENTIVE TO THE BARD 

DURING THE LATER YEARS OF HIS LIFE, 

AND 

bNTIL HE WAS REMOVED FROM THIS WORLD 

BY THE HAND OF DEATH, 

IS THIS LARGER AND MORE EXTENDED EDITION^ 

ON BEHALF OF THE LATE LAMENTED .SON OF SONG, 

DEDICATED BY THEIR FRIEND, 



'/i-£ .-K5''^^->^>3 



\ \ \ (\ K Kf * 




INCE the death of the Milford Bard the desire has been 
repeatedly expressed by his numerous friends and admirers, 
that his Writings should be collected and published in a 
much more enlarged and extended edition, tlian has here- 
tofore been submitted to the public. It is with the view 
* of meeting the demand thus presented, that this volume of 
his works has been compiled. It contains his best pieces, both of Poetry 
and Prose, the most of which have not appeared in any previous volume. 
It is due, alike, to the author and the public, that the literary efforts 
of one so well known and appreciated as the Milford Bard, should be 
collected and embodied in a form in which they may be preserved by the 
lovers of light literature, and read as opportunities may be afforded. 
Many an hour may be spent, both pleasantly and profitably, in the pe- 
rusal of the sketches of life and character, and poetic effusions, which the 
generous-hearted Bard possessed so much delight in preparing for his 
readers. 

As a contributor to many of the most popular and interesting periodi- 
cals of his day, the Bard obtained a very considerable reputation, and his 
productions have been popular wherever circulated. In his younger years, 
being favorably known as a correspondent of "The Casket," a Monthly 
Magazine, and "The Saturday Evening Post," a Weekly Newspaper, 
both of extensive circulation, his reputation as a writer was established, 
and his productions were much sought after. Both the Casket and Sa- 
turday Evening Post were published in Philadelphia, and being the media 
through which the Bard and other authors presented their writings to the 
public, their circulation extended to all parts of the country. 

During his residence in Baltimore, at a later period of his life, the Bard 
contributed, both in poetry and prose, to nearly all the periodicals of the 



VI PREFACE. 

city. He wrote principally, however, for the Baltimore Patriot. With the 
editors of that paper he was well acquainted, and he received from them 
many evidences of their favorable i-egard. 

Subsequently he i-emoved his residence to Wilmington, Delaware, where 
he became the Literary Editor of a well conducted literary and commercial 
journal, published in that city, under the title of "The Blue Hen's 
Chicken," which paper was owned and edited by Messrs. W. T. Jean- 
dell and F. Vincent, both warm and devoted friends of the Bard. To Mr. 
Jeandell he was particularly attached. He acknowledged with gratitude 
the kindness and attention shown him, both by that gentleman and his 
family. The stories of the Bard, published in Wilmington, were founded 
upon circumstances in real life. This gave them additional interest, and 
caused them to be widely circulated. On the publication of "The Broken 
Heart," which will be found on page 201 of this volume, thirty -five hun- 
dred copies of the paper were issued, and they were all immediately dis- 
posed of; and fell far short of the demand. The story is founded upon 
a circumstance well known at the time of its occurrence, and in the vi- 
cinity where it took place. Many of its incidents are of thrilUng interest, 
and are narrated in a manner that will bear comparison with the efforts 
of some of the best authors of the day. 

The pieces here published are of various character, style and merit. 
They form a volume adapted aUke to the Library, the Boudoir and the 
Centre-Table. It is intended for a Gift Book appropriate to all seasons. 
It will afford instruction and amusement alike to the old and the young; 
and vnll serve as the instrument by means of which many an otherwise 
weary hour may be pleasantly whiled away. 

THE EDITOR. 
Baltimore, November 23, 1852. 



€minis. 



PAGE 

Memoir op the Milford Bard 1 to 30 



PROSE. 

Tlie Wizard of Valley Forge, or the Revenge of the Mysterious Man. ... 25 

The Sequel, or the Revelation of the Mysterious Man 71 

Tour to Valley Forge 104 

Ono-keo-co, or the Bandit of the Brandywine 121 

The Dream of Love 174 

The Birth of Christ 183 

Christ on Calvary 192 

The Broken Heart, or Virtue Triumphant in Death 201 

The Triumphs of Learning , 263 

The duaker Merchant, or the Generous Man Rewarded 273 

The Bible 300 

Dialogue on Human Happiness 305 

The Courtship versus the Rum Jug 314 

The Duel, or the Dream of Love 328 

The Buggaboo 345 

Love a la Mode, or the Boatman's Daughter 357 

Helen Mac Trever: a Tale of the Battle of Brandywine 408 

The Muzzled Dog 446 

The Humming-Bird's Nest 461 

The Curiosities of Science, No. 1 489 

" " " " " 2 500 

Manitoo, the Indian Beauty of the Brandywine, and Wild Harry of Wil- 
mington 521 

Ruins of Time 569 

POETRY. 

What is Hope ? 103 

The Washington Monument 116 

Prayer for Greece , , 117 



VIU CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

The Last Patriot of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. ..118 

Erin Arise ! 119 

Cupid in Exile , 120 

Concealed Affection 167 

The Lady Isabel 168 

Fame 171 

The Dream 172 

Female Charms 173 

Death of MacDonough 181 

The Grandeur of God 182 

The Infant Saviour 191 

Lines 200 

Slander 255 

The Neglected Wife 256 

Memory 257 

The Battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777 259 

Love and Reason 270 

Hope 271 

O there are Tears 272 

Love's Pilgrimage round the World 296 

The Stolen Kiss 297 

To the Cottage Maid 298 

St. Paul at Athens 302 

The Dying Deist 303 

Address to the Moon 312 

Ambition's Hope 313 

The Cathedral Bell, Baltimore 320 

The Sisters of Charity 321 

Retrospection 322 

Lines on the Death of Isabel Terry 323 

Solemn Reflections 324 

Speech of Logan 325 

Sunrise at Sea 327 

The Monkey Outwitted 339 

Delaware 342 

There I met fair Mary Jane 343 

Evening on the First of June 344 

Spirit of Niagara 351 

The Great Battle 353 

Poland = .. .354 

Palsy of the Soul 355 

Autumn 356 

Woman 's Worth 403 



CONTENTS. IX 

PAGE 

Why don't he Come? 404 

To the Charmer 405 

Love's Changes 406 

To a Friend 407 

The Poor Man's Death-Bed and Burial 434 

Thoughts, while standing on the Battle-ground at Chadd's Ford 435 

The Banks of the Brandywine 438 

Skepticism 444 

To Dr. John W. Dorsey, of Liberty-Town, Maryland 442 

Lines written on a Tombstone over a Young Lady 445 

Adam's Love for Eve 456 

Lines on the Death of Mrs. Ann Talley, wife of Mr. Elihu Talley, of 

Brandywine 457 

To Mrs. Rachel Jeandell, of Wilmington 459 

Lines addressed to my young friend M 460 

The Dead Bird 467 

The New Yeai- 468 

My Sister 469 

Eulogy on the Life and Death of Dr. Joshua Howard Dorsey, of Liberty- 
Town, Maryland 470 

Reflections on the Death of James Manning 473 

Extempore Lines on the Death of Dr. Garret S. Layton, of Milford, Del. .474 

Woman's Heart 475 

Departed Days 476 

Clawing Off 477 

The Muse of Poesy 479 

Virtue 480 

The Flowers 481 

The Fair Gondoher 483 

The Lexington 485 

The Wandering Minstrel 487 

The Son of the Sea , 488 

A Poet's Garret 510 

Fancy 512 

The Post Office ; 513 

Winter's Coming 515 

To the Duelhst , 516 

Memory of Decatur 517 

The Revenge , 518 

Real Pleasure , 519 

Pride 520 

Departure of La Fayette 557 

Pathetic Stanzas 558 

B 



X CONTENTS, 

PAGE 

A Fragment » 559 

The Seasons 561 

Female Tenderness 562 

The Silkworm = 563 

To a Lady, who rejected my offering of Flowers 564 

All is Vanity 565 

The Advent of Christ 566 

I have leaned 568 

Thoughts 574 

Benjamin Franklin 575 

Henry Clay 576 

John GLuincy Adams 577 

Death of John Q,uincy Adams 578 

Daniel Webster 580 

The Jubilee, and Death of Adams and Jefferson 581 

John M. Clayton 582 

Napoleon Bonaparte 583 

Bolivar 584 

Retrospection 585 

Last Lines of the Bard 586 



^maix ai % JJifelr 




-»—• ♦ — ■*- 




HIGHLY responsible and interesting, but melancholy- 
doty is imposed upon the biographer of the Milford 
Bard. It would, at any time, be a difficult task to do 
justice to the character of one, whose life was marked by 
so many varying vicissitudes, nearly all under his own 
Y§: control, and materially effective in his person and habits. 
And more especially is this the case at the present pe- 
riod — a date so early after his death, and while the re- 
membrance of his person and deeds are fresh in the 
minds of his friends, and his literary performances so 
recent in the view of the public. It is not yet four years 
since the Bard was in the midst of his friends, in the 
activity and vigor of manhood, pursuing his calUng as 
•■he editor of a popular periodical, and the contributor of some of the best 
and most interesting of his writings to its columns. After a brief illness he 
was snatched away by the grasp of the ruthless destroyer. He is gone; but 
his memorial is with his numerous admirers. Long will they remember his 
blandness of manner; his ease and freedom of intercourse with society; his fine 
conversational powers; his gentleness; his waywardness; his wanderings; his 
struggles against his besetting vice — intemperance; and his arduous labors for 
the instruction and amusement of the public. 

JOHN LOFLAND, the Milford Bard, was the eldest son of Isaac and 
Cynthia Lofland. He was born in Milford, Delaware, on the ninth day of 
March, in the year 1798. Isaac Lofland was a respectable merchant of Mil- 
ford, and Cynthia, his wife, was one of the most affectionate and frugal wo- 
men of her day. Her son John, the subject of this memoir, appears to have 
been her favorite, and it is not unlikely that in the earlier years of his child- 
hood, he was allowed the free exercise of his own will, with, perhaps, very 
little restraint. Inheriting the kind and gentle disposition of his mother, his 
fondness for her gave him easy access to her affections, to which he appealed 
on every occasion of real or fancied oppression. With childhood these occa- 
sions are neither few nor slight, and almost always accompanied with the de- 
mand for redress. With such a child in charge of such a mother, the exercise 



A MEMOIR OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

of parental discipline was both difficult and uncertain, and allowed a latitude of 
desire and pursuit on the part of the child, not at all favorable to the formation 
of a determined and decisive character. 

Isaac Lofland, the father of the Bard, was a man of more ability than educa- 
tion; and the opportunity he possessed for the exercise of either was not very 
extensive. To his mother, rather than to him, he was indebted for whatever 
he possessed of prominent points of character, such, at least, as may be con- 
sidered inheritable. This was the opinion of the Bard himself, and appears in 
several forms of expression in his writings. It was a matter of pride to him 
that he could boast of hereditary character in the maternal relation ; and while 
but little is said of his father in all his numerous published efforts, they teem 
with allusions to his mother, and with the most affectionate and tender expres- 
sions of love and devoted attachment. 

It was the desire and purpose of Isaac Lofland that his son should receive a 
good education. In this his wife most heartily acquiesced, for she was 
anxiously desirous that he should be enabled to occupy a respectable position 
in society. To carry out this design he was sent to school when he was very 
young. But, either the first teacher that was employed to conduct his studies 
was utterly incompetent for the task, or the Bard himself was a very dull pupil. 
It is said that it was full six months before he mastered the alphabet. The 
promise of distinction so anxiously desired by his parents, was not in any 
manner realized during the first few years of his childhood. His progress for 
some years, was measured by the same slow and unsatisfying pace that made 
memorable the first six months of his scholastic career. He conceived such 
an utter dislike to mathematics, upon the very threshold of the study, that he 
could never after be induced to pursue it with any degree of interest. It is 
probable that his dislike for the study of the languages was but little less than 
that which he entertained for the pursuit of mathematics. He made some 
proficiency in Latin and French. Greek, as a study, he did not relish, though 
he admired the language. He tolerated Valpy to get rid of the problems of 
Euclid. But the slow and indifferent progress of the Bard, in the ordinary 
studies of the schools, was by no means indicative of his mental energy and 
power. His forte was reading and composition. He was passionately de- 
voted to history, and the lives and works of eminent men, especially the poets. 
He was contented only when he could be occupied with his favorite authors, 
either poring over their works, or imitating their styles of composition. Thus 
employed, he spent much of the time of his youthful years, that he afterwards 
regretted was not occupied in the acquirement of a thorough knowledge of tlie 
less interesting branches of his scholastic education. 

In composition the Bard excelled at an early age. When but twelve years 
old he wrote some well measured and sensible poetry. Some of his verses 
were written at an earlier period of his life, and although they bore the evi- 



MEMOIR OP THE MILPORD BARD. 6 

dences of a mind yet unmatured, they were not without merit, and gave pro- 
mise of future distinction in that department of hterature. 

It is not known whether the very slow progress of the Bard in the studies of 
his early childhood, and his dislike to some of those of his more advanced 
youth, were the result of his own natural dulness, or were occasioned by the 
incompetency of his teacher. Some of his relations are of opinion that his 
mental powers were fully equal to those of the boys generally of his age, and 
tliat the deficiency is entirely chargeable to the person that was entrusted with 
his education. On behalf of the teacher, no argument can be used to disprove 
the indictment for incompetency. In relation to the boy, there are proofs 
enough that there was no lack of mental ability. His capacity was de- 
veloped sufficiently early to satisfy his friends that he began life not only mens 
Sana, but mens sana in corpore sana; and was fully able to do his part in a fair 
and impartial attack upon the alphabet, or any other lesson contained in his 
primer. Had the instructor shown fair-play, doubtless those potent adver- 
saries, the ABC's, had fallen one by one before the rising intellect of the 
future Bard. 

There are, no doubt, many persons who assume the profession of the 
teacher, who are altogether insufficient for the arduous duties of that very re- 
sponsible and interesting office. And there are, no doubt, many young pupils 
who are dull of apprehension, and indisposed to receive instruction. An ac- 
tive, energetic, faithful teacher, may remove many an impediment out of the 
way of his young charge, and lead him on almost imperceptibly, in the pursuit 
of his studies, until the duty may become a pleasure, and the labor a welcome 
employment. But on the contrary, if the teacher be incompetent, or indolent, 
or unfaithfid, the study of the pupil becomes a laborious and irksome task — 
a difficult, tedious pursuit; and if he be not worn down by the oppression, in 
his heart he learns to despise the performance, and to hate the necessity that 
enforces it. Such may have been the case with the youthful Lofland, and 
difficulties may thereby have been placed in his path, the removal of which 
may have cost him many an hour of anxious concern and arduous labor. 

The fact that a child is six months learning the alphabet, is no proof of 
mental imbecility, nor of natural dulness. But considered in connection with 
the hundreds and thousands of other facts of the kind, that are constantly oc- 
curring, it should be a warning to parents and the guardians of youth and 
childhood, to exercise gi-eat care and judgment in the selection of the in- 
structors of their children and Avards. Regarded in this most important rela- 
tion, it should induce all who have charge of the young, in their growing and 
improving years, to give some attention themselves to their studies. The im- 
press of character is generally made very early. In the responsibility of this 
impress, the mother of the child, and its first teacher, are mainly interested. 
One false step on the part of either, may lead to irretrievable ruin. Indul- 
gence, or too great severity, on the part, of the mother, or incompetency, in- 



4 MEMOIR OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

difference, or unfaithfulness, on the part of the teacher, may induce habits of 
indolence, or reckless disregard of restraint, that may be a perpetual impedi- 
ment in the way of the youthful charge, or cause him to hurry on through the 
years of his minority, with a fixed unconcern for consequences, and neither 
fear nor care in relation to the result. 

It was doubtless the Bard's misfortune that he was not properly ti-ained in 
early life. There was a lamentable failure somewhere among those who were 
intrusted with his education. An examination of his history suggests the idea 
that he was not, in the scholastic sense of the term, educated at all, but was suf- 
fered to educate himself, and pursued his way through the years of childhood 
and youth, without any fixed views either of business or of character. The 
facts of his life and features of his character, yet to be noticed, afford proof of 
the correctness of this idea. 

At the age of fourteen his reading had been extensive, and had his education 
been properly managed, his character would have been formed. His mind at 
that age was well stored with facts, but he had not the judgment necessary to 
enable him to make a proper use of them. Recurring in after years to that 
interesting period, he made the record which serves as a way-mark in his in- 
definite career. "In my earlier years," said he, "I was skeptical, though I 
had listened to many a pious lecture at the feet of one of the most affectionate 
of mothers. I had read the French and English skeptics at fourteen years of age, 
with boyhood's avidity and with boyhood's judgment. I dreamt over the pages of 
Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, Maupertuis, Rousseau, Condoixet, Volney, 
Hume, Gibbon, with a host of others, and I awoke an infidel. But believing 
it to be unfair to study on the one side and not on the other, I turned to the 
Sacred Scriptures, and, endeavoring to establish skepticism, I was convinced of 
my error." 

At this point of his life, we discover the Bard' s need of the mathematics, 
and other branches of his education, the study of which he so heartily dis- 
liked in his younger years. Upon the solid foundation that these might have 
afforded him, he might have reared a superstructure, which, while it would 
have done honor to his character, might have been the means of accomplishing 
much good among mankind. He was certainly allowed his own way to a very 
great extent in the pursuit of his reading, and his little bark upon the sea of 
life at fourteen, cari'ied a dangerous freight of knowledge. But for the coun- 
sels of his mother, which he so highly treasured, it might have mingled poison 
with the waters through which it passed, or foundered prematurely upon the 
sands of infidelity. It was to her instructions that he was indebted for the 
desire to hear both sides of the important question that troubled him, — whether 
Christianity were truth or false. The impression her " pious lectiires " made 
upon his mind, induced him to study the Scriptures, and although he pursued 
that study with the view of having his skeptical notions confirmed, the sacred 
oracles were to him their own interpreter, and performed the wonderful 



MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 5 

work of removing the mass of prejudice he had accumulated against them. 
Throughout his wayward life he was sometimes disposed to play the skeptic, 
but whenever he reasoned with himself, he became ashamed of the weakness, 
and arose from it with renewed purposes of a steadier and more faithful course. 
The following extract from the passage already partly quoted, shows his at- 
tachment to the Christian religion, and is a grateful tribute to the memory of 
his mother's instructions. 

" Did the Christian religion extend no further than this life, I should advo- 
cate it, because it is a blessing to society. My life has been a wild one, but 
my heart is in the right place. In me nature is reversed, for my heart governs 
my head. Whenever I am disposed to wander from the path of virtue, the 
memory of the silvery voice of my mother in childhood, comes sighing in my 
ear, sweet as the harp of heaven to a dying saint. My heart melts with ten- 
derness, and I am saved." 

How much like the thoughts and feelings of a wayward contemporary, were 
those of the Bard when the memory of his mother and her afFectioiiate instruc- 
tions were recalled in his reveries ? 

"My mother's voice, how often creeps 
Its cadence on my lonely hours. 
Like visions on the wings of sleep, 
Or dew on the unconscious flowers? 
And years of sin and manhood flee. 
And leave me on my mother's knee." 

At seventeen, the Bard concluded that his school-boy days were over, and 
turned his thoughts upon the profession that he was to pursue in life. After 
some deliberation he decided upon Medicine, and commenced the study in the 
ofiice of his cousin, Dr. James P. Lofland. He attended the lectures of the 
University of Pennsylvania three successive years. When he was nearly 
through his studies and preparing for graduation, a misunderstanding occurred 
between Professor Cox, of the University, and himself, in consequence of 
which he left the Institution, and gave up his purpose of entering the Medical 
Profession. He was pleased with the Science of Medicine as a study, but he 
frequently declared that he despised the drudgery of its practice. The misun- 
derstanding with Professor Cox, produced a revulsion in his mind in relation 
to the honors of the University, and prevented him from graduating under its 
authority. He has often said that he did not lose much in the loss of his 
diploma, for it would have been impossible that he could ever have made his 
living in the profession. He was well acquainted with the different branches 
of medical study, and not unfrequently gave advice to the sick and prescribed 
for them. 

In the hasty manner in which the Bard gave up the profession that he had 
expended more than three years in preparing to follow, we have another sad 



b MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

result of the unfortunate neglect of his early education. It is an evidence of 
lack of power in the concentration of his energies; and it doubtless originated 
in the loose and indefinite manner in which he was permitted to pass through 
his youthful years. Had he been placed at school under the care of an effi- 
cient instructor, and kept at his studies until he had thoroughly mastered them, 
it is very likely that he would have obtained the control of his own faculties 
in the effort, and instead of being the sport of a wild and reckless imagination 
through life, he might have settled down in some active pursuit, and main- 
tained a prominent position in the community. He was certainly possessed of 
a considerable share of mental power; but it was turned to but little account 
because he had no control over himself. He had no advantages in the school 
of experience. Life with him was a rambling adventure, and he met its 
changes of wayward fortune with stoical indifference. 

Parents sometimes boast of what they regard a versatility of talent in their 
children, but which is nothing more nor less than the fickleness — the unsettled 
purpose — the desire for change that unfits them for the studies of childhood 
and youth, and the sterner duties of more matured life. It is one of the 
greatest misfortunes of youth that they are allowed to enter upon many pur- 
suits and enterprises which they never complete. They begin many things 
which they never finish. One enterprise after another is abandoned before it 
is understood, and successive performances are commenced and laid aside, as if 
it were not the object to pursue any to perfection. How much of life is 
wasted in this manner? How many of the years of youth are thus employed 
to the permanent injury of the possessors of such destructive liberty? Defi- 
niteness of character and pursuit is as much required in the education of the 
child, as the studies of the school. Without it the brightest intellect is hkely 
to become a waste — the best informed mind a thing of waywardness and 
chance. 

Before the Bard commenced the study of medicine, and during the period he 
was engaged in it, he was in the constant use of his spare moments in compo- 
sition. He wrote verses with great freedom, and was distinguished among his 
young acquaintances as " the Poet." He was at one time the principal con- 
tributor to a popular monthly magazine entitled " The Casket," and a weekly 
paper called " The Saturday Evening Post," both of which were pubhshed in 
the City of Philadelphia. Some of his early productions were published over 
the signature of "The Milford Bard," and he was soon distinguished in 
the use of the sobriquet much more than he was in that of his real name. 
For many years the title of " The Milford Bard " was famihar nearly all 
over the country, while the real name of the author was almost unknown. 
His writings rendered the two periodicals to which they were principally con- 
tributed very popular, and in their circulation the Bard himself obtained con- 
siderable celebrity as an author. He wrote upon scientific subjects, as well as 
those of the lighter Uterature of the day; and in them all he exhibited a highly 



MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 7 

creditable familiarity with general histoiy, the lives, characters and writings of 
eminent authors, and the various matters of science upon which he employed 
his pen. 

At this period of his life, and during the residence of the Bard in Philadel- 
phia, the poet, Thomas iVIoore, visited this country. The literary attainments 
and position of the young Lofland attracted his attention, and induced an ac- 
quaintance. They became intimate friends, and the Bard has often alluded, 
with interest and pleasure, to the period when they enjoyed each others' so- 
ciety and conversation. Their rambles along the banks of the Schuylkill, and 
admiration of the scenery on both sides of that beautiful river, were subjects 
of delightful reminiscence, to which the Bard frequently recurred in his wan- 
derings, as green spots amid the waste of his memory. 

It is said of the Bard, and indeed the fact is sometimes referred to in his 
writings, that during the years of his early manhood, he became very much 
attached to a young lady, whom he addressed, and with whom, it is supposed, 
he was anxiously desirous of uniting his fame and fortune. But for some 
cause or other his suit was unsuccessful, and he was doomed to a life of disap- 
pointment and regret. In both his prose and poetic productions, he has in- 
vested this circumstance with a romantic interest, which has afforded a melan- 
choly pleasure, especially to a great many of his younger readers. In the 
story of " The Betrayer," the last of his compositions, and which he did not 
live to finish, he intimates a later attachment, the features of which might have 
been more apparent had his life been prolonged until the story was concluded. 
In the introduction he says, " Every thing in the story is described just as it 
occurred, even to the words spoken, so far as they can be remembered. The 
names of the characters are fictitious, and the names alone, for all else is real. 
Who the personages are that figure in this drama, I leave to my readers to dis- 
cover; only one reason induces me to acknowledge that I am one, that reason 
must be locked in my heart. Reader ! dear reader ! that reason, or motive, is 
a strong one, and it is bathed in the tears of a beautiful, affectionate, and vir- 
tuous woman, and will be embalmed and buried in my bosom, unknown to 
any other human being, until the trump of the angel Gabriel shall break upon 
the floom of the grave, and the secrets of all hearts made bare before the tri- 
bunal above." 

There is reason for the opinion that he was himself one of the principal cha- 
racters of the story, and it is possible that, if it had been concluded, many 
of the events of that interesting period of his life, and of the affair which he 
characterized as one of affection and honor, might have been suggested. 

In some of his poetic effusions he alludes to the circumstance of his early 
attachment, in a manner so full of interest and feeling, that if he had not him- 
self stated that they were occasioned by it, the idea would be suggested to the 
reader. In his " Lines " to a lady that expressed some regard for him, occur 
the following: 
1 



MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Oh! once I bowed at beauty's shrine, 
Charmed with love's silken chain; 
But never can this heart of mine, 
Bow down in bliss again. 

"I woke the harp to woman's ear, 
With all a minstrel's art; 
And as she leaned my notes to hear, 
Love's arrow pierced my heart. 



"The memory of that mournful hour, 
"We for the last time met; 
To blot there is no human power, 
I may not now forget." 

In the poem entitled "The Dream of other Days," are the following allu- 
siona to the subject. 

"The dream of other days how bright? 
But mournful 'tis to me 
When on my soUl there shines the light 
Of love and memory. 



"I see her in my manhood's pride, 
In beauty brightly blaze; 
Again she lingers at my side, 
In dreams of other days. 

"She leans upon my bosom now, 

Her heart ia pressed to mine; 
I feel it beating as her vow 

She breathes of love divine. 
I see her face so mild, so meek, 

I hear her soul-felt sigh; 
A smile is on her dimpled cheek, 

A tear in her dark eye. 

"That vow is broken, and that breast, 

To guile and grief is given; 
My heart no more with hope is blest, 

Alas! I fall from heaven. 
I float alone down life's dark stream, 

A wreck in beauty's gaze; 
Oh! sweet, but sad to me that dream, — 

That dream of other days." 

It is clearly evident that in his writings, and intercourse Vvith his friendsj the 
Bard frequently alluded to his disappointment in " his aftair of the affections," 



MEMOIR OP THE MILPORD BARD. 9 

as the most important event in his life ; the one that effected an entire change 
in his character, habits and feeUngs, and caused him to pursue a wayward 
course through all the succeeding years of his manhood. 

After his disappointment, for a long time the Bard secluded himself from 
society and employed himself in stories and composition. His writings were 
of a miscellaneous character, chiefly literary, consisting of Poetry and Prose 
Compositions, with some few of scientific character. So closely did he confine 
himself at one period, that for three years he was never seen upon the street, 
nor had for a moment his hat upon his head. The only exercise he took 
after the fatigue of writing was a ramble in the garden among the flowers, of 
which he was very fond. 

Throughout the years of liis maturity and amid many changes and vicissi- 
tudes, the Bard continued to give evidences of an affectionate disposition, — of 
a kind and gentle nature. He was very fond of children, and was ready at any 
time to undergo fatigue and trouble to oblige them. He had a strong attach- 
ment for home and friends, and appeared to be even anxious to perform little 
services for those he loved, or to receive favors at their hands. It is remark- 
able how firm and unwavering his affection for his mother continued through- 
out the whole of his life. He bore her image ever in his heart, and the bare 
mention of her name at any time would send a thrill of indescribable emotion 
throughout his system. In corresponding with her, when absent, he addressed 
her with the simplicity of a child, and poured forth the feelings of his heart in 
the impassioned language of a lover to the lady of his affections. She was the 
star of his idolatry, and held a power over him that could never be exerted by 
any other person. Her letters to him were characterized by great tenderness, 
and although they sometimes reproved him with great severity, there was no- 
thing Hke offence in their language. 

When wearied in the sedentary pursuits of his Study, the Bard has often 
sought relief in the more active employment of the artist and the mechanic. 
He had a taste for sculpture, and made several very creditable attempts to 
chissel the human form out of the solid marble. An effort of this kind was 
commenced by him during his residence in Baltimore. The subject was a 
sleeping child. When he had pretty well advanced in his design, by an un- 
lucky blow, he cracked the marble block out of which he was cutting the figure. 
Discouraged by this accident he gave up his purpose, and left the little subject 
of his interest in an unfinished condition. It is now in the possession of Pro- 
fessor Dunbar of Baltimore. Another attempt of the kind was made in Wil- 
mington, Delaware, which he did not live to fini.sh. The design was the infant 
Saviour, and was intended for his friend, Mr. Jeandell, of that city, who still 
retains it as a memento of his deceased friend. 

It is pleasant to detail the many excellent and interesting traits that were 
prominent in the character of the Bard. Would that the pen of his biographer 
could be confined to tliese! Would that the waywardness and weakness of his 



10 MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

intemperate^career could be passed over in silence ! But this cannot be. The 
knowledge of his habits is too widely extended among the communities in 
which he lived, to be omitted here. He has himself written and said so much 
of the " maddening bowl," and the wreck and ruin that it wrought for him, 
that nearly all the readers of his writings are familiar with many of the facts. 
He was aware of a general misapprehension in the public mind upon this sub- 
ject, and prepared a statement by which he intended it should be corrected. As 
this statement, which was published by him, in a periodical of considerable 
circulation, some years before his death, gives a more correct view of his habit 
and its effects than any thing that may now be written, it may be as well to 
present it to the reader. The title is the same as that used by the celebrated 
Coleridge in a similar detail. 



T® mj g'mniBsr 




C|e Ctfufessions at m #|iiim (£i\kx, 

BY THEMILFORO BARD. 

JHE confessions which I am about to make would never meet the 
public eye, were it not for that philanthropy which actuates my 
heart — that desire I have to warn others, who, like myself, are 
sliding into the path of error, without being aware of the danger. 
I have another object in view in making these mortifying disclosures, which is 
to correct the idea of many persons, that I have at periods been wilfully dissi- 
pated, and that liquor has been my besetting sin. It is a false idea. There is 
no man on the face of the earth who more heartily despises drunkenness than I 
do. Oh! God; could my pillow and my bed speak, what a tale would they tell 
of the agonizing tears I have shed, and the heart-rending sighs I have breathed, 
on account of the follies which liquor, superinduced by opium, has caused me 
to commit. Oh! how wretched I have been, when I looked back on the past. 
But — *'To err is human — to forgive divine." 
How beautiful are the lines of Pope — 

" Teach me ta feel another's woe, 
To hide the fault 1 see; 
That mercy I to others show 
That mercy show to me." 



The poet Burns declares, that — 

!^ Man's inhumanity to man, 

Ma)jeg countless thousands mourn. 



MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 11 

Shakspeare is equally severe on human nature, when he says — 

"There is no flesli in man's obdurate lieart, 
That (eels for man." 

The great Erasmus is severer than the Bard of Avon, if possible; for he ex- 
claims in Latin, ^'' Homo homini lupus — man is a wolf to man." But notwith- 
standing these illustrious authorities, I have many friends who have hearts to 
feel and forgive. To such I appeal for assistance, on the eve of rending 
asunder the chains of my greatest enemy, which have so long rattled on my 
limbs of liberty. I ask them not for their gold, but for encouragement in re- 
pudiating the greatest enemy that ever darkened and degraded my intellect. 

The reader will perhaps recollect the case of the talented literary writer, 
Henry Neale. He made many ineffectual attempts to escape from the tyranny 
of the Turk, from the shackles which the demon of opium had imposed upon 
him. But he struggled in vain. He arose at night from his bed, and threw his 
bottle of laudanum into a street of Boston. Distressed next day beyond endur- 
ance, he was compelled to fly to the druggist. Crazed by the influence of 
laudanum on his brain, he seized a pistol in a fit of despair, and blew out his 
brains. 

Coleridge, a distinguished writer of England, wrote a work, entitled, " Tlie 
Confessions of an Opium Eater." He describes in graphic language, the horrible 
agonies he suflJ'ered, and the many schemes he projected so as to cheat nature or 
his system gradually out of the use of opium. He failed in many of his 
attempts, though at last by assistance succeeded. 

No one, except the druggist, has any idea of the great number of persons in 
this, and every other community, who are in the constant secret habit of eating 
■opium. Their "name is legion." 

Twenty years or more ago, I went on a visit to the scenes of my Alma 
Mater, and in returning home to Delaware, on board of a packet, I slept upon 
the deck and took cold. I also ate an enormous mess of cucumbers sliced with 
onions in vinegar. On arriving at home, I was attacked between midnight and 
day with violent cramp-colic. After suffering two hours I was compelled to 
go down and arouse my mother, who gave me a tea-spoonful of laudanum. In 
fifteen minutes perceiving no effect, I requested her to repeat the dose, which 
she did. In the course of thirty minute's I felt some relief and took a third tea- 
spoonful, which relieved me entirely. It is curious, but no less true, that a 
person in great pain will take opium or laudanum with impunity, sufficient to 
destroy life when not in pain. In the lock-jaw, technically called tetanus, half 
an ounce of laudanum may be given without any apparent effect, though half an 
ounce is certain death to a man under common circumstances. 

I imagined that the first attack of cramp-colic would be the last, but on the 
next night about the same time, I was attacked again. So it continued on 
from night to night, until I was compelled to remove the cause from my stom- 
ach by a cathartic. But it was too late. I had taken the laudanum until I 
could not sleep without it. If I took not my usual dose on retiring, the irrita- 
tion in my system became so great, that I could not be still a minute. I wap 
then compelled to get up and take my dose, which had gradually increased to 
half an ounce, promising myself that I would ere long quit the use of it. Thus 
I put off the evil day till too late. 

From habit the effects became extremely delightful. The influence of opium 
on the brain, when the stomach is clean, is very different from that of ardent 



12 MEMOIR OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

spirits. The latter ilashes on the brain a few minutes, inflaming the blood, and 
then dies; while opium acts for hours in the same degree, soothing and calming 
the nerves, and rendering the mind completely happy. 

But this delightful state of things was destined not to last. In the course of 
some months my stomach began to be disordered, and my brain sympathized. I 
was distracted with dyspepsia and horrified with nightmare, and the most terrific 
dreams, until I was afraid to close my eyes in sleep. Alarmed for the first time 
I attempted to throw off the habit; but in vain, for I felt as if a hungry tiger 
were hugging me to his heart. Urged on by desperation I increased the dose, 
until I seemed to lose the use of my limbs, and my brain became frenzied. 
Imaginary distresses took possession of my mind, and I fancied that my friends 
had forsaken me, and were continually descanting on my unfortunate habit. 
In this condition, not knowing scarcely where I went or what I did, depression 
of spirit, arising from the state of the nervous system, called for stimulus; and 
I drank ardent spirits to intoxication for the first time. The liquor added to 
laudanum, inflamed my blood and 1 cut all manner of shines. I went to the 
old church in my native town; I ascended the pulpit; opened the best of books; 
took my text, and became eloquent, it was said, for my brain was in a highly 
excited state. Some ladies and gentlemen in the neighborhood, hearing my 
voice, excited by curiosity, came to the church, and took their seats, while for 
an hour I poured forth upon them the thunders of the violated law. My 
mother prophecied in early life, when I was held up as a pattern of sobriety 
and moraUty, that I would one day be a minister of the Gospel. I was fulfill- 
ing her prophecy in one respect, but alas sadly in another. Many such vaga- 
ries I committed; such as ringing a silver bell through the street, calling all 
good citizens to the sale of all old maids and bachelors. When recovering I 
remembered nothing that passed during the delirium caused by liquor and lau- 
danum, until my friends recalled the circumstance to my dreaming memory. 

At diflferent times a thousand different fancies possessed my mind, in the same 
manner that the Turks are affected by opium. At one time I imagined that my 
arm was a needle-making machine, and that I could see the needles spinning 
out at my elbow in quantities of several hundred a minute. At another time 
I fancied that a comical looking old man, with one eye and a wooden leg, was 
continually at my side wherever I went. When I sat down to the table he sat 
down beside me. When I stretched my hand to a cup of coffee or a piece of 
toast, the one-eyed gentleman stretched forth his. When I arose and went out, 
he did the same. At bedtime, when [ raised my foot to get into bed, he raised 
his; and when I awoke in the morning, there lay the old gentleman at my side, 
with his one eye wide open. I was not frightened at the spectre, for I under- 
stood the philosophy of the matter. The effect was produced by an illusion of 
the optic nerve, and no doubt all ghosts are produced in the same way in nerv- 
ous persons. I had formerly known an old man with one eye, who had been 
a pensioner on my bounty. The impression his person had made on the retina 
of my eye, was by disease of the nerves revived, and hence my mind contem- 
plated the picture on the back of the eye, for every thing we look at makes a 
picture there, upside down. 

Dr. Benjamin Rush, if my memory serves me, relates the case of a young 
man who devotedly loved, and was pledged in marriage to a beautiful dashing 
damsel. Before the nuptials were celebrated and their fortunes united, she sud- 
denly sickened and died. He became nervous from excessive grief, and took 
to his bed: \vhere the image of her person was revived upon the i-etina, and he 



MEMOIR OF THE MILFORU BARD. 

fancied he saw her sitting in a chair, near his bed, leaning her head upon her 
hand, and gazing at him with a sorrowful look. Having studied the science of 
optics, he knew the cause of the apparition; but had he been ignorant, he 
would have sworn that he had seen a ghost. To prove that it was an illusion, 
he stretched his cane and passed it through the shadow of his beloved. When 
he rubbed his eyes she disappeared; because the optic nerves were then stimu- 
lated; but he could soon recall her by thinking of her. When he thought of 
the gold locket he had given her, she would arise; go to the bureau; pick it up; 
look at him sorrowfully, and burst into tears. As his nerves grew stronger, 
she came less and less frequently, until the false picture was entirely obliterated 
from the eye, and she came no more. In the same manner, persons with 
Mania apotu or madness from rum, see horrible objects in the room. 

But to return. My friends at last confined me, and I determined to make 
the desiderate attempt to throw off the habit of using opium. But I struggled 
in vain, for the chains of a demon were around me. My friends used every 
means to prevent me from getting the opium, but intense suffering caused me 
to seek every opportunity to obtain it. My agonies were beyond endurance, 
and one night, when all were asleep, I softly stole from the house and repaired 
to the office of my cousin, the Doctor. I knew where the laudanum bottle was, 
and with delirious joy I seized it, and drank four or five ounces; I knew it was 
four ounces for I measured it in a graduated glass. I then took enough to 
destroy eight or ten men. Oh! how different were my feelings when I re- 
turned home ! I had in a few minutes passed from despair to perfect bliss. The 
next day I obtained opium, by stratagem, and continued the habit. 

I recovered with a clean stomach, and continued a year to take the opium, 
until it again threw me into the same condition, and again I was induced to 
take ardent spirits. Every year this was repeated, and my friends thought I 
drank periodically. 

At one time I was building an organ of five stops, and one night frenzied 
with opium and liquor, 1 imagined that I was in a bar-room, and that the front 
stop or row of open diapason pipes were the slats which enclosed the bar. I 
commenced tearing away the pipes to get in the bar, and it was some time 
before I discovered my mistake. I then repaired to my room, where I had 
many bottles of acids, &c., for chemical experiments, and seized a bottle con- 
taining nitric acid or aqua-fortis, drinking at the same time about half a gill. I 
perceived the mistake, and drank five ounces of oil, which saved me. My 
throat was so swollen that I could scarcely breathe. 

Under the influence of liquor, superinduced by the use of opium, I once 
went out with some young men on the Delaware Bay to fish for drums. 
Towards sun-down the young men pulled for the shore, while I sat in the stern 
steering. When the boat struck the beach, all hands being much intoxicated, 
they seized the oars and leaped on shore; the tide which was strongly setting 
out to sea, carried me off in the boat rapidly, without a paddle or an oar, and 
without anything to bail the boat, which was rapidly filling with water. When 
a mile at sea, being an expert swimmer, I leaped into the boiling flood, and struck 
with "lusty sinews" for the shore. But the tide was too strong, and 1 returned 
to the boat, which was half full of water. Night was fast wrapping the foam- 
ing waves of the Bay in gloom, when some fishermen happened to discover me; 
launched a boat and came to my assistance. Long before we reached the shore 
my boat sunk. I had a spell of sickness; recovered still in the use of opium, 
and continued eighteen months before my stomach and brain were disordered 



14 MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

sufficiently to fall into the use of ardent spirits. So long as opium did not de- 
throne reason, the monarch of the mind, so long I avoided ardent spirits; but 
so soon as the Turkish tyrant caused aberration in any degree, I flew to liquor 
and was soon on top of the city. Under the influence of liquor and laudanum, 
I have often been in great danger. I have escaped imminent death in a hundred 
different ways — from the pistol, from poison by mistake, from the waves, from 
the snow-storm, when returning from a frolic in the country, when I was found 
by a Methodist preacher; from the dagger of the assassin, &c. 

A gentleman in Baltimore desired me, in 1838, to go on to that city to write 
out a book for him, he having conceived a new system of agriculture. The 
hotel, at which I boarded, took fire in the night from a steam-engine in the 
rear; my trunk was plundered of money and clothing, and I found myself in 
the streets of a large city in a state of destitution for the first time in my life. 
Distress of mind caused me to use opium freely; before it disordered my stom- 
ach and brain sufficiently to cause me to drink, I was making by my pen a 
liberal salary. The usual result of using opium finally took place, and before 
I was aware of it, I found myself in a carriage at the gate of the Maryland 
Hospital, and two stout and strong men ready to take me to my room. Opium 
and liquor were both denied me, except a thimble-full per day, when I had been 
taking eight ounces of laudanum (half a pint,) or half an ounce of opium in 
the same time. Oh ! the anguish that I suff'ered during three long weeks, not 
sleeping a moment in thirteen days and nights, for I could not sit still, stand 
still, or lie still one minute. I was almost blind from loss of sleep; my limbs 
jerked violently; cramps seized me in every limb; my nerves crawled like 
worms, and I was compelled to walk, walk, walk, until nature was exhausted, 
and I could scarcely drag one foot after the other. 

One day, in perfect despair, I went down to dinner. The Doctor and the 
patients were seated at the table. I could not eat. I arose, and as I went up 
stairs I met the gate-keeper going down to see the Doctor. Good! I exclaimed 
to myself, the track is clear! Though extremely nervous, I ran into the yard; 
seized a piece of plank; placed it against the wall, and with a desperate eflfort I 
ascended and went over the wall; but I had smashed the gold lever watch in 
my vest fob; broke the heavy gold guard I wore, and dropped a gold key and 
seal on the inside of the wall. But I heeded it not. I ran to Baltimore street; 
leaped into a carriage, and told the driver to drive to the first drug store as if 
the devil were after him, assuring him that money was no object. Sure 
enough, I went up Baltimore street like the fluid along the electro-magnetic 
telegraph. I leaped out and told the druggist, who knew me and my habits, as 
all the principal citizens did — for I never hide my faults — I told him for God's 
sake to give me four ovuices of laudanum as soon as possible. I swallowed it, 
and in half an hour I swallowed four ounces more. In one hour I was at ease 
and as happy a man as ever existed. But alas! I was again as deep as ever in 
the habit of using opium. Afraid to go home, lest my friends should send me 
back to the Hos^jital, I bought a shirt to put on the next morning, Sunday, and 
staid at a hotel, with the intention of paying a visit next day to a lady, who, 
some time before, had sent me her card, and of playing with her on the piano 
and accordeon. 

Accordingly, next day I started up the street in high spirits to see her, for 
she was a celebrated beauty; but who should I meet but one of my friends, 
who had been most active in sending me to the Hospital. " Doctor," said he, 



MEMOIR OF THE MILPORD BARD. IS 

with surprise, "how did you ^ei out of tlie Hospital?" Why, sir, said I, I 
jumped tlie wall. 

The next day I went home, and during eleven months and three weeks I 
never touched ardent spirits; but during that time opium was bringing round 
the old results. I stepped in one day at Beltzhoover's hotel, and a southern 
gentleman hearing me called Bard, an appellation I was universally called by in 
Baltimore, he made himself known, and invited me to take some bi-andy. We 
drank several times of fourth proof, until the gentleman and myself were both 
glorious in the arms of Sir Richard Rum, How I got to Barnum's City Hotel 
I never could divine; but I got there without having my head broken on the 
pave by Sir Richard. Mr. Barnum, seeing me asleep on a settee that stood on 
the marble passage, took my watch off my neck and put it away, for fear I 
.should be robbed when I should go out on the street. When I went out I was 
met by a cousin, an officer in one of the banks, who hailed me — 

" Come, cousin John, will you take a ride?" 

"Yes," said I, "if you'll let Sir Richard Rum and the Grand Turk go 
with me." 

"Very well," returned he, smihng, "get into the cab." 

I soon fell asleep upon his bosom, and when I awoke I was at the Hospital 
gate. Again I was cut off from opium ; again I suffered horrors unutterable. 
I begged, I plead at the Doctor to give me laudanum enough to calm my system, 
but all in vain. I could not sleep, and passed the night in talking through the 
flue on literary subjects, to a person who occupied a room just above mine. 
Booth, the celebrated tragedian, was confined in the next room. The next day, 
worn out with misery, I resolved to have opium at all hazards. I bribed the 
coachman to bring it, and while he was gone, I slipped the Doctor's key, stole 
into his office, while he was standing on the long passage, filled my pint cup 
with brandy ten years old, and escaped unseen. In a little while I was immor- 
tally glorious. I seized a sheet, wrapped it around me, and flew up stairs. 
The ladies were at tea — no one was in the upper parlor. One of Pickering's 
grand pianos stood open before me. I sat down, and commenced playing in 
tones of thunder. The Doctor hearing the thundering bass in the Battle of 
Prague, came up, took me by the pulse and said, " Bard, you have been taking 
stimulus, where did you get it?" "Oh! Doctor," said I, " you cannot expect 
me to turn traitor against Sir Richard," Not understanding my allusion, he 
thought me delirious, and took me down to my room. The coachman brought 
nie an ounce of opium; I took about one-quarter, slept soundly, and was well 
in a day or two, to the surprise of the Doctor, and was taken home by my 
friends, under the supposition that I was free from opium. I longed to be so, 
but the agonies of the rack were too great for my resolution, and in moments 
of suffering I unfortunately managed to obtain the drug, which in twenty years 
has cost me between two and three thousand dollars. 

I now took opium, or rather laudanum, fifteen months before it superinduced 
drinking; but it finally resulted in the usual way. I became very dehrious; 
arose from my bed at night; took two pair of pistols from my trunk; went 
wandering about the house, and got lost. I found a dress and bonnet belonging 
to a lady in the house; put them on; belted my pistols around me, and wan- 
dered into a room where two Spanish ladies were asleep, supposing the room 
to be mine. Opium had put the fancy into my head that I had been challenged 
to a duel, and having had some experience in that matter, I, as a true Blue 
Hen's chicken, wn>: jireparing for the occasion. Seeing the rosy cheeks of the 



16 MEMOIR OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

ladies, I began to suspect that I had got into the wrong pew. While contem- 
plating slumbering beauty, the light awakened them, and seeing as they thought 
a woman with a belt full of pistols, they uttered such a wild scream as rung 
through the building, and called forth all hands and the cook to see what was 
the matter. A universal laugh at the figure I cut was the consequence. 

My limits will permit me to mention but a few of the miseries I have 
endured, and many ludicrous scenes, which would excite the laugh at my ex- 
pense, are omitted. Thank God, my friend, Dr. Askew, of Wilmington, has 
freed me from my greatest enemy, opium, and by good nursing I am recovering 
my health, notwithstanding my death has been reported over the city. Mortuus 
est. But a dead man does not eat a pound of broiled beef-steak and toast 
drowned in butter, with a quart of coffee for his breeikfast. Doctor Askew has 
taken great interest in my welfare, and struck at the root of the matter. He 
warned the druggists not to sell opium to me. When suffering I tried to obtain 
it, but as they say in Baltimore, I couldn't come it. Dr. Askew is the first phy- 
sician that ever was too cunning for me, and I shall love him for it as long as 
my heart continues to beat. The hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen who 
visited me, principally strangers, were watched lest they should smuggle me 
opium. The Doctor, in getting ahead of me, certainly belongs to the fast line. 
Had he bestowed upon me a fortune in gold, and suffered me still to remain in 
the habit of using opium, he would not have conferred upon me half the blessing 
he has now done. In being freed from the use of the drug, I have suffered a 
hundred deaths, though the Doctor mitigated my pangs as much as possible, 
by the administration of morphine in small doses; by sympathizing with me in 
my agonies, and by encouraging me to endure every thing for the sake of being 
free from that curse which has obnubilated my intellect; for I know not what 
it might have been, had I never fallen into the habits of using opium and liquor. 
I am no longer stupid — my mind is one hundred per cent, brighter, and it will 
still increase a thousand per cent, when, in the course of some weeks, I am 
restored to health. 

To Mr. Jeandell, one of the proprietors of the Blue Hen's Chicken, who 
arrested me in my wild career, as well as to Dr. Askew, who has treated me 
like a brother, and put himself to much trouble to prevent the possibiUty of 
my obtaining opium, I owe an eternal debt of gratitude. The Doctor has per- 
formed the labors of Alcides, commonly called Hercules. He has cleansed the 
Augaean Stables; he has slain the Nemaean Lion; he has crushed the Lernoean 
Serpent, and strangled the mighty Antoeus of habit, He has rent asunder the 
chains beneath which I groaned, and to gratify his humane heart, I have so- 
lemnly pledged myself that when I go forth into the world thoroughly restored 
to health, I will never touch opium again; and in shunning that drug, I shall 
for ever be free from the use of liquor. I wish my friends to stick a pin here, 
and let me warn others against the habit of using opium, for it is a demon far 
more terrific than Sir Richard Rum. Beware of it, for it will betray you into 
the arms of Sir Richard. My friends. Professors Monkur and Annan, of Bal- 
timore, assured me that so long as I used opium, so long would I be liable to 
fall into the use of ardent spirits periodically. 



In the above graphic detail of melancholy events, induced by the use of 
liquor and opium, the reader has a brief epitome of the Bard's life for twenty 



MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 17 

years and more. During that time he made frequent efforts to break off from 
his unfortunate habits. He submitted to many inconveniences and privations, 
such as voluntary imprisonment; confinement in the houses of his friends; re- 
moval from opportunities of association in society to solitary places, &c. In 
a number of instances, after long abstinence, he was confident that the moral 
force had triumphed, and that he was freed from the influence of the tempter. 
He has exulted in the victory, and celebrated the happy event, both in prose 
and poetic composition. His struggles to be released from the iron fetters of 
the demon of his besetments, are so many proofs of the high estimate he 
placed upon virtuous character, and his great anxiety to attain eminence in its 
possession. None but those who have experienced the burning desire for the 
drug that produced his delirium, can estimate or appreciate the wretchedness of 
his situation when it was denied him, and when he voluntarily placed himself 
beyond its reach. In the nervous excitement under which his system was tor- 
tured, death would have afforded him relief, and there is no doubt but that he 
frequently endured a physical agony which it was impossible even for himself 
to describe. 

The unfortunate habits of the Bard disqualified him for the pursuit of any 
regular business. He made the attempt several times to keep himself em- 
ployed, so that he might resist the attack of his enemy, but the result, in every 
case, proved that he was not sufficient for the task. The indefinite process by 
which his early education was pursued, and the indecision that was allowed to 
mark the advance of his maturity, disqualified him for the exercise of that 
moral control, without which a man becomes the sport of passion — the play- 
thing of a wild and wayward chance-fortune. Without the power of con- 
trolling circumstances, in his weakness, circumstances controlled him, and he 
went on through life like a man that was bhndfolded, and yet compelled to 
work his way amid the crowds of a busy city. His history shows how one 
false step may lead the subject of it [astray, and cause him to wind his way 
through a labyrinth of darkness and difficulty, with but little prospect of re- 
lease from the bewildering mazes of his gloomy and uncertain pathway. 

For a number of years while the Bard resided in Baltimore, and afterwards 
in Wilmington, he employed himself in writing for the press and the pubUc. 
His productions for the press consisted in productions almost exclusively of a 
literary character. His writings for the public were miscellaneous and greatly 
varied. They consisted chiefly in scientific and popular lectures, orations and 
addresses of different kinds; and poetry upon an indefinite variety of subjects 
and occasions. For some of his productions he was tolerably well remu- 
nerated; for others he was but poorly paid. He managed, however, in general 
to secure a livelihood. His correspondence in his pursuit of preparing ora- 
tions and addresses, and writing poetry for persons less gifted than himself, is 
of a highly interesting character. A few extracts will serve as well to amuse 
the reader, as to show the nature of the correspondence, the kind of service he 



18 MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

was called upon to render, and the manner in which he was paid for his 
services. The letters are quoted verbatim. The following letter is written in a 
very fair hand, and apparently by one somewhat advanced in age. 

" ^ January 31 184G 

"MiLLFORD Bard Esq 

*^ Dear Sir — I take the Liberty to call on you as you promised me to Com- 
pose me a pease and if you will I will feale mySelf Very much indebted to you 
and will never forget you for it. 

" I am your Obt S. R E 

"P S. and if you requier a compensation for it you shall have it. 
" I am about to qoart a yonng Lady who 1 love sincearly.'* 

The following is in a good hand, and seems to have been written by a much 
younger correspondent. 

" March 28, 1848 

•' To THE MiLFORD BaRD 

"Dear Sir — My object in addressing you at this time is to request you to 
write for me a piece of Poetry consisting of about twenty lines, or more if neces- 
sary 1 want it for a Ladies Album. As to the title of the article I want, I 
am at a loss to know what to term it 

"You might speak of my first sight of her which was about two years ago- 
She resides in the Country, near the City, I was out there to Church on Sabbath 
at the time spoken of above, and as I came out the Church I saw her for the first 
time. Speak of the impreasion that sight made ujjon me, which has never 
been eradicated to day. As her residence is on a high hill which ovei'looks the 
City of Monuments it would well to speak of the high and elevated position 
she occupies in the world and in my affections. 

"Also may the high position she occupies, may it ever image to her mind 
the great height which it is her priviledge to attain to in Christian perfection, 
and the high position which it is my desire she may attain to in the kingdom 
of glory above 

"Not knowing positively your location I have not sent the money for fear it 
will not reach you in Safety. But If you write to me immediately on the 
receipt of this and let me know the price I will remit the amount prior to the 
receipt of the article. 

"If it is convenient I should like to have the article by friday of this week. 
I will want several other pieces written soon. 

"Your old friend, S " . j 

" January 1 1848 

"To Milford Baku 

" Enclosed I send you $3 Presuming that it is all you v.'ould charge me for 
the lines I want you to compose and forward by mail, this is a thick settled 
Country the West part of N. C — and if I can throw any thing in the way of 
the Md Bard (as I am now doing) I will do so. But to the point. I want a 
poetic addressed to a young lady whose name is Isabella, my Friend saw 

her (or you may say Me at present) at Mount H a methodist Chapel in 

fhf Country, I want it in plain verse or poetry, the Girl i^j Eighteen, Black 



MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 19 

Eyes, Beautiful Auburn hair and the most beautiful Natural Curls you ever 
have seen, my Friend Loved her and the Feeling was doubley reciprocate and 
an almost weekly intercourse was kept up until lately, in your hnes to Isabel 
you may take the best notice of this you think best, my F proposes to com- 
mence a Fresh with the Spring, or it will somewhat depend on the Efeact pro- 
duced by your Composition, (her Father is dead) She has lately had a suitor 

whose name I send you to use in the poetry if you think proper — it is 

My Friend was Slandered during his visits to I and he thinks that was the 

cause of her very sudden change &c She was once playful and kind. Now 
she is disposed otherwise, and we wish to draw her out fully through our 
Friend M — B — Please attend immediately and send to 

' ' Your Friend , S 

"PS 18 years old — lives in the Country Black Eyes — Auburn hair. Curls 

Beautifully. Father dead — last rival — discarded. Met at Mount H 

last 4th July Love on First sight — good feeling until lately — we want to know 
the Cause — basely slandered a coldness Folowed — The slander was a charge of 
dealing too Free with the Critter or Intemperance. Tis not true The initials 

of my friend are T J My Friend T J is a clever Fellow and I 

want you to do him all the Justice you can & oblige S " 

" M)vember 6 1848 

" Dr John Lofland 

" Sir — It is my intention to present a young lady who is to be my compa- 
nion through life with my Daguereotype likeness in a golden locket — As it ia 
my wish to present it in Poetry and as I am not competent of writing such a 
piece I therefore write wishing you to write me a piece suitable for the presen- 
tation of such a present. As for describing her minutely it is out of my 

power. Her age is years beautiful form — fair skin Cold black hair and 

eyes, rosy cheeks, beautiful lips and teeth and ever wearing a cheerful and 
lively covintenance In fact she is possessed of Nature's finest stamp of beauty, 
and besides all this her intellectual and mental powers are very great. 

" It is not altogether upon her beauty that I wish you to write, but the manner 
in which she must accept of it^-that it is the picture of her devoted lover and 
intended companion, and while she keeps it in possession, she must reject all 
others that offer to her their hands. Enclosed you will find a One dollar bill, 
which I suppose is the amount you charge 

" Respectfully yours &c AH W" M. D. 

"PS. Send it as soon as you can write it. Direct it to your old friend A 
H W I shall send for a great many more in a few weeks." 

" May 3d, 1849. 

" MiLFORD Bard, Esq. 

"My Dear Sir — My object in addressing you this letter is I want to know 
what you will charge for writing: an oration suitable for a Fourth of July ora- 
tion 20 minutes long in the same style as the " Course of Time " is written in. 
I admire that piece as among the ablest ever wrote I want you to let me know 
what you will charge and I think there is no doubt we will strike a bargain. 
" Yours very respectfully, F S " 



20 MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



May 31 1847 



" My Dear Sir — Yours of the 17th came to hand I want you without further 
delay to write me an oration and when you leceive my next it will contain ^10 
I am about out of money at present I must have the oration. I would just say 
to you that I have a loud and distinct voice. My gestures are perfectly natural 
and easy, and not acquired. Please give me a " Touch of the sublime " Speak 
of our army in Mexico in glowing colors and brilliant language. I have no 
doubt it will be published. 

" Yours truly F " 

«' June 15 1847 



''Dear Sir — I begin to feel very apprehensive of a very serious disappointment 
as 1 have not heard any thing from you lately about my 4th of July oration. 
I hope I shall hear from you as soon as possible. 

" Yours F 

«" June 27 1847 

" Dr. Lofland 

" Sir — I have been anxiously waiting to hear from you in relation to my 
fourth of July oration. The time is drawing near and you have not sent it. 1 
shall not even now have time to study it properly; and if I do not get it soon I 
shall be disgraced. Please write the oration and send it at once as it is a source 
of great trouble and uneasiness to me. F ." 

Whether or not the uneasy applicant received his oration, there is now no 
opportunity of ascertaining. The applicant himself, if he is living, is probably 
the only one that can give the information. It is not unlikely that the Bard 
was at the time in one of his opium aberrations and that the oration was not 
forthcoming. He was always, when himself, prompt in his reply to corres- 
pondents, and wrote the papers for which application was made, whether he 
was paid for the labor or not. 

The correspondence from which the above letters are selected, is extensive, 
and contains a great variety of applications upon almost every department of his 
unique profession. Some of the letters are of a very amusing character. A 
number of applications from prospective graduates in institutions, both collegi- 
ate and medical, shows how considerably the Bard has contributed to the in- 
terest of such occasions, and to the popularity of the efforts of the young 
aspirants. The limit allowed to this sketch, will not admit of a more extensive 
publication of the correspondence. The names of the writers are generally 
signed to their letters, and if published with the correspondence, a considerable 
Btir might be made among the literary and professional aspirants of the day. In 
one instance an order was given for half a dozen poetical articles to be published 
in as many periodicals; another correspondent contracts for an article per month 
to be contributed by him to a monthly magazine. 

The Bard's residence in Baltimore was rendered extremely interesting by the 
sympathy that prevailed in his behalf, especially among the ladies. Whenever 



MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 21 

he was prostrated by sickness, superinduced by his use of opium, he received 
every token of kindness, in the vi^ay of presents of svi^eetmeats, and the nume- 
rous delicacies of the different seasons. For these evidences of regard he was 
always grateful, and some times noticed them in his contributions to the press. 
The former volume of his Poetical and Prose Writings, published by him, was 
dedicated to the "Ladies of Baltimore," who showed their kindness to him 
"in sickness and under other circumstances of affliction." 

The publisher of this and also of a former volume of the writings of the Bard, 
Mr. John Murphy, was to him, a valuable friend and adviser. He assisted him 
in various ways, and undertook the responsibility of publishing his works in 
order to aid him in securing the means of support. The previous volume was 
issued entirely at the risk of Mr. Murphy, and without the prospect of pecuni- 
ary advantage. When the book was published, he used every exertion to 
secure for it an extensive circulation, with which the Bard was highly gratified, 
an4 frequently acknowledged his friendship, and the great service he had done 
him. If any profit of consequence is realized from the effort it must be from 
the present volume. 

It was at the request of the Bard that the Editor of this, collected and ar- 
ranged the matter for the volume previously published by Mr. Murphy. The 
entire labor of preparing that volume for the press and of examining the sheets as 
they were printed, was committed to his hands, the Bard at the time not being 
able to attend to it himself. He has in a number of instances among his literary 
and other friends, expressed his gratitude both to Mr. Murphy and the writer 
of this sketch for the services rendered him. 

After his removal from Baltimore, which he expressed great regret in leaving, 
he made his residence in the City of Wilmington, of his native State, Delaware. 
There he became connected with the "Blue Hen's Chicken," one of the most 
interesting and popular newspapei's ever pubHshed in Delaware. It was at that 
time owned by Messrs. Jeandell & Vincent, gentlemen of enterprise and energy 
of character, and well qualified for the management of a literary and commercial 
periodical. Of this paper the Bard became one of the editors, and was for 
several years the principal literary contributor. Some of his best and most 
interesting productions were prepared for it. His residence in Wilmington was 
of a most interesting character. As in Baltimore, he gathered around him a 
circle that sympathized with him under all circumstances. In many instances 
he was ministered to by his friends as though he were a favorite child, and 
needed the attentions and affectionate services of those around him. To Mr . 
Jeandell, whom he regarded as a warm devoted friend, he frequently alluded in 
terms of high regard and affection. His contributions to his periodical 
were generally founded upon facts. Some of them excited great interest 
on that account. The main features of the Tale of the "Wizard of Val- 
ley Forge," were facts, which were well remembered by the inhabitants of 
that vicinity. They were communicated to the Bard while on a visit to the 



22 MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

place in company with his friend Mr. Jeandell, for the purpose of obtaining the 
information. The story of the "Broken Heart" obtained a very extensive 
circulation. The principal circumstances narrated were true. The following 
letters upon the subject, written to the Editors and Publishers of the "Blue 
Hen's Chicken," and the Bard, will doubtless be read with interest. 

" Sept. Uth, 1848. 

"Dear Sir — In consultation with some intimate friends this morning and fur- 
ther reflection, there appears to be but one opinion respecting the publication at 
this time of the tale in question, ("The Broken Heart,") and that is, that it 
would be highly improper to do so. 

"The facts as my esteemed friend, the Bai'd, has narrated them, would be 
recognized here at once, and would produce another round of borough gossip 
dragging in the lamented subject of it, who now sleeps in death. It would pro- 
bably, too, be considered by some as though this course was necessary to 
bolster up a doubtful character, wliich no one here will dare to assert. 

"There are other reasons for withholding the publication of it at this tinfe, 
among which is the fact, that the friends of the deceased have not yet returned 
from Ohio. They are anxious also to remove her remains to her native town. 
At this moment, perhaps, they are on their way hither. 

"I am well aware of the anxiety of some of your readers to have the tale 
published, as they are indeed to have every emanation from the pen of the 
gifted Bard, and no one, I assure you, devours his productions more greedily 
than your humble con-espondent, but unfortunately this matter is so pointed, 
and the town so located in which it occurred, that it would be improper at this 
time to publish it, 

"Inasmuch as you have mentioned in your last paper that the publication of 
it had been postponed, no further notice of it whatever is required now, and I 
presume the postponement will not interfere with your arrangements, especially 
as the Bard can soon favor you with a substitute. At a future day I will cer- 
tainly give permission to publish it. 

" When the Bard shall have concluded the narrative, will you favor me with 
the manuscript? I should like very much to read it, and in a short time, when 
all excitement shall have been allayed here, I will return it for publication. 
Please let me hear from you on the subject. 

" In great haste, your friend, " 

The above letter has no address but is presumed to be to Messrs. Jeandell 
«&. Vincent. The following is addressed to the Milford Bard : 

" Oct. 27, 1848. 



" Dear Sir — The chief objection I had to the publication of the tale of "The 
Broken Heart " has been removed, and although I fear it will give a notoriety 
which perhaps will be of no advantage to me, yet I do not longer object because 
I feel desirous that the world may know the length the demon of malice can go 
in the blasting of the character of a virtuous female. ^ more base, wanton and 
damnable accusation was never brought against any living being than that which 

persecuted to the death, the beautiful, the beloved and virtuous . Well 

might she have exclaimed, as she frequently did, that she ' wished she were in 
her grave.' Only the day liefore her death, after writing a most affectionate 



MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 23 

and touching letter to her mother, and another to him upon whom she looked 
as a benefactor and guardian — her truest and best friend, she said to her cousins 
who were at her side, " I am sick, very sick, but I do not fear death !" What 
a triumphant, — glorious exclamation for one so near the grave? What stronger 
rebuke could she have expressed of the wickedness of her slanderers? What 
more consoling declaration could she have uttered to her parents and friends? 
"Yours, truly, " 

"To THE MiLFORD BaRP." 

The following note was appended to Messrs. Jeandell and Vincent: 

"If the location can be changed, so as not to mention our Borough in the 
Tale, I would prefer it. I hesitate to ask the favor, fearing it may not meet the 
approbation of the Bard. ■" 

A number of the prodvictions of the Bard contained in the present volume of 
his works, were founded upon incidents familiar to the inhabitants of the places 
where the events narrated transpired. They are now in the possession of 
many persons who can testify to them authoritatively. The vein of morality 
which runs through those incidents of life, as they may be called, is good, and 
will doubtless have a salutary effect upon the readers of the volume generally. 

The writings of the Bard during his residence in Baltimore and Wilmington 
obtained for him a widely extended notoriety ; and his efforts were, in many 
instances, succeeded by marks of public approbation. He was elected an hon- 
orary member of the Belles-Lettres Society of Dickinson College. The college 
is situated in Carlisle, Pa. The like honor was conferred upon him by the 
Union Litei-ary Society of Washington College, Washington, Pa., and by the 
Phrenakosmian Society of Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa. 

While the Bard was in the active pursuit of his labors in Wilmington, he 
was suddenly attacked by the illness which terminated in his death. He was 
writing the story of "The Betrayer, or the Fair Penitent of Wilmington," a 
story in which he was himself, as before stated, one of the principal characters. 
He had proceeded but a little way with the second number, when he was 
obliged to stop, and was conducted to his bed, from which he never arose. The 
following are the last words he wrote of the story, which is in a state too unfin- 
ished to be pi-esented to the reader: "Amanda hesitated— she was startled. 
She felt that she was under the power of an enchanter. Her gentle heart pal- 
pitated with love and fear! — her soul was — ^ — ." 

A note by the editor contains all the information that can be given in relation 
to the subject. The following is the note: 

"The above are the last lines ever written by the Milford Bard. As he 

wrote the words — "her soul was " sudden sickness seized him. He 

dropped his pen, and never wrote a line again. The conclusion of the Pair 
Penitent, an incidoit in the Bard's owr) life, will therefore for ever remain a 
mystery." 

3 



24 MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

An editorial which appeared in a previous number expresses the editor's 
opinion of the production, and gives some idea of its appreciation by the pub- 
lic, as also the estimate that was placed upon the tale of" The Broken Heart." 

"The Betrayer, or the Fair Penitent of Wilmington. — We shall 
publish in our next paper the first part of the above thrilling tale, by the Mil- 
ford Bard, whose stories, as well as other writings, are exciting an interest in 
other cities and towns that is truly gratifying to us. We have just received a 
letter from Salem, New Jersey, with orders for our paper, in which the gentle- 
manly writer says, that there is a 'perfect mania' there for the Bard's 
writings. It is no wonder, for they are full of tenderness and feeling — they 
come from and go to the heart. This story will be the most interesting to our 
citizens of any the Bard has ever written, because it will not only be a local 
tale, every scene of which was enacted in Wilmington, but it is a true tale, and 
the Bard, himself, is one of the characters. Some of the love scenes, between 
Lothario and Amanda, are powerfully described, and calculated to touch the 
heart of sensibility. The scene, too, between Mr. Blondville and Lothario, 
when the former charges the latter with betraying Amanda St. Clair, — when he 
collars him, and they cling, and Mrs. Blondville throws herself between them, 
regardless of danger, — when pistols are sought for in the closet; — but what are 
we doing? We are giving the reader the secret of the plot, and thereby 
abridging the pleasure of the perusal. We will say no more on the subject. 

"Of the tale of 'The Broken Heart,' we put on the press a tremendous 
extra edition; so large that we were fearful that a great portion would remain 
on our hands; yet, by the time the tale was finished, they were gone — we were 
unable to furnish a single set of the numbers. Of 'The Betrayer,' we shall 
put to press a still larger extra edition, for we are not only called on by single 
non-subscribers, but we have orders for large numbers of our papers contain- 
ing the stories of the Bard. We foresee that great curiosity will be excited in 
this city, to know who the characters are in this story, which we assure our 
readers is true to the letter, and transpired in this city but a short time since. 
Every scene is described, as we are informed by the Bard, just as it occurred. 
We have seen the lovely Amanda St. Clair, and though the Bard has given a 
voluptuous description of her, if we may use his words, yet he has not exag- 
gerated her charms. She is indeed fascinating, and it is no wonder that Lo- 
thario loved her." 

The last letter of the Bard, which was written a short time before his death, 
shows the condition of his mind and feelings in view of his anticipated decease. 
It is expressive of a strange mingling of religious sentiment and resignation 
and dread of the pains of dissolution, — of doubt and hope, — of uncertainty 
and despair. It is the sad prelude of a result that might well have been antici- 
pated of a life of waywardness and sensual indulgence. The letter was printed 
after the Bard's decease, preceded by explanatory editorial remarks in the 
periodical of which he was for several years the literary editor. The remark 
and letter are as follow: 



MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 25 



"THE MILFORD BARD." 

"The following letter of our deceased friend, was written to William T. 
Jeandell, the senior Editor of this paper, after one of the ' Bard's ' unfortunate 
sprees, during which a slight falling out had occurred between them. The 
pure Christian spirit of forgiveness and love gushes forth from a good heart, 
like the cooling water from a spring in the desert. It is in some parts almost 
prophetic, particularly as to the time of his death. 

" To Mr. William T. Jeandell. 

" With feelings of despair at the prospect before me; the prospect of a short 
life, of constant sighs, tears and groans; of sleepless nights, and days of 
anguish, while as decay goes on. Death will stare me in the face. — With the 
consciousness that I have the melancholy evidence in my own breast, that I 
am doomed to run the same short race that my beloved sister ran, I cannot be 
satisfied without disclosing to you the present state of my mind, and the pre- 
sent sentiments of my heart. My reasons for doing so, are — that I may be 
suddenly snatched out of the world, either by the arm of Omnipotence, or by 
my own hand; for I candidly confess to you, that when I now reflect upon the 
bright prospects of earlier and happier years, and contrast them with those of 
the present — when I think of the hfe I have led, and above all, that I have been 
instrumental in signing the death-warrant which I this moment feel in my left 
breast, despair comes upon my heart like an icy flood; the world grows dark 
before me, and I am strongly tempted to steal to some lonely spot, and put an 
end to the fitful fever of life. You, no doubt, think from my sad look and 
silent manner, that there is anger in my heart; but, oh ! could you look into 
that heart you would find no trace of anger or animosity — nothing but despair. 
" It is my desire to take the warning I have had, and, in the language of a 
pious old gentleman in Baltimore, ' to post up my books in this world and pre- 
pare for another.' I wish to die as a man should die; with fortitude, resigna- 
tion and decency. I can truly say that I have no particular desire to live in 
this world, for it has long since ceased to give me any pleasure. I do not fear 
death — it is only the manner of it; the thought of lingering for months in 
agonizing misery. No, I often wish, in my calmest moments, that I were in 
the grave. All that now harrows up my soul is, that I have signed and sealed 
my own death-warrant. I am going or have started in the very path that my 
sister trod to the grave, and could I go down as she did, with a conscience void 
of offence, I would not complain. 

" I desire to alter my life in to to, and to live and die in peace with all man- 
kind. I can truly say, that I do not harbor an ill-feeling towards any man, 
and it is my desire to do all the good I can, towards my fellow-men, while I 
live. From my knowledge of disease of the lungs, I know full well that I shall 
not live to see the year 1850; and, therefore, it is time for me to think seriously, 
and make my peace with God and man. I have outhved all my own brothers 
and sisters. They all died at an earlier age than I now am, and I have from 
year to year expected to receive the summons. I received it on the last Fourth 
of July. On that day I took a long walk into the country, and walked rapidly 
several miles, for exercise. I felt no way sick until about one minute before 
the attack came on, when a deathly sickness came over me. I sat down under 
a tree, to vomit, as I thought, when blood came gushing out at my mouth. Its 
redness proved it to be from the lungs. I thought I should bleed to death, and 



26 MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

resigned myself. How long I remained tiiere, or whether I fainted, I do not 
know. I afterward took medicine to relieve me. This was not on the Bran- 
dywine; I was not there that day. The next day I felt very unhappy, and 
went down there. While there, I threw up blood again, and one of the men 
said it was a bad sign. I came home and went to bed, determined to be quiet. 
Should any thing happen by which I should be suddenly snatched out of the 
world, I will thank you if you will inform my mother of the event. 

" I have written this that you may know my mind and sentiments. If de- 
spair does not hurry me to distraction, I wish to alter my life in every respect. 
In other words, to become a better man and die decently. ********** 

" Henceforth I will be at enmity with no hvmian being. My late misfortune 
has brought me to my senses. When I am dead I know you will not remem- 
ber me in anger, and will not think me the worst, though the weakest of men. 
I am eccentric, but my heart is not evil. In my present state of feeling and 
resolve, I desire to be friendly with you, as well as all my fellow-men. I hope 
that nothing will ever again mar the good feeling between us. It would render 
me in my present state, very unhappy, were I to think that you would not for- 
get and forgive the past. Strange as it may seem, I have never felt that I could 
do you an injury. I may have said harsh things in drunken madness, but 
never when in my reason. I have ever felt that you was my nearest friend, 
since I came to Wilmington, and though I have been strange in my ways and 
manners, I can say in the presence of God, that I have never seen the moment 
when in my reason, that I could have injured you. For the truth of this, as a 
dying man, I call God to witness, before whose bar I must ere long stand. 
Think not, then, that I have any ill-feeling towards you. In the sincerity of 
my heart, I hope God may bless you with long life, prosperity and happiness. 
The day will come, my dear fellow, when you will think of me with pity and 
sorrow, when I shall be slumbering in the cold grave. In writing this letter, I 
have discharged some of the feelings of my heart, and I do not feel so melan- 
choly. To fall out with a friend is equal to a spell of sickness, to me, of a 
week's duration. Such a thing shall never occur again, if I can help it. Again, 
I wish you to consider me friendly, though sad, and that I feel no anger 
toward any human being, much less towards you. 

" Yours in heartfelt friendship and sadness, 

"JOHN LOFLAND." 

After a brief illness the Bard paid the great debt of nature on the 22d day of 
Jeuiuary, 1849. He died in the fifty-first year of his age, in the midst of a 
large circle of friends, many of whom were very much devoted to him, and 
were greatly affected at his unexpected decease. In accordance with his own 
request, he was buried in the Cemetery of St. Andrew's Church, Wilmington, 
by the side of his sister, Mrs. S. V. Chambers, wife of the Rev. Corry Cham- 
bers, a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church. During the whole of 
his life he was very much attached to this sister. A few weeks before his 
death he visited her grave, and gave vent to his feelings while standing by the 
monument erected over her remains, in one of his most tender poetic effusions. 
It will be found in this volume. 

Of the writings of the Bard, a great pi'oportion of which are collected in this 
volume, the reader will judge for himself They are of various degrees of 



MEMOIR, OF THE MILFORD BAUD. 27 

merit, and will doubtless afford both pleasure and profit in their perusal. The 
most of them appear to have been written with ease, and in a pleasantly glow- 
ing style. They afford indications of the buoyant spirits of the Bard, as well 
as of a religious impress, which, in spite of his wanderings, had its influence 
upon his mind. He composed with facility. Perhaps the most prominent 
characteristic of his poetry is the ease with which it appears to have been writ- 
ten. The following lines, a copy of which was found among his papers, were 
composed, in a few minutes, in the house of the writer of this memoir, upon 
whom he called to make the compliments of the season on Christmas day, 
1842. On being informed by the sei'vant that the family were out, he took a 
slip of paper and a pencil from his pocket, and placing the paper against the 
wall, wrote the lines. 

According to my promise made last year, 
I've called again, but find you ai'e not here. 
may the blessed boon to us be given 
To meet together at the gates of Heaven; 
There may we tune the holy harps above, 
And gather laurels in the land of love — 
There in the blooming garden of our God, 
Beyond the dreary, all-entombing sod, 
When suns and stars and systems shall consume, 
And vast creation crumble in the tomb, 
O may we mingle with the mighty throng, 
And sing through heaven an endless, joyous song ! 
Votre tres humble serviteur, 
Chiistmas Day, 1842. Milford Bard. 

N. B. As I last Christmas day was here, 
I'll call again this time next year. 

The Bard appears to have entertained a high regard for religion, although he 
does not seem to have had any definite views of the subject. Nearly all the 
religious instruction he received was communicated by his mother, who was 
herself, for some time after her marriage, deprived of the opportunity of inter- 
course with religious society. The family of his father was connected with the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, but for forty or fifty years there was no clergy- 
man in the vicinity of his residence, and of course no service was held there. 
It was not until the year 1836, when the Bard was in his thirty-eighth year, 
that the old Savana Church, near Milford, then in ruins, was revived by the 
Rev. Corry Chambers. The Bard's habits were then fixed, and he had pro- 
gressed considerably in his wayward career. His mother joined the Methodist 
society, but the Bard was never inclined to follow her example, His sister. 



28 MEMOIR OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

the wife of the Rev. Mr. Chambers, was a member of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church. 

Mrs. Chambers was a woman of considerable energy and talent. Her letters 
Avere well written, and of highly interesting character. She composed and pub- 
lished a number of poetical articles. Some of them appeared in the periodicals 
of the neighborhood in which she lived. Tiie following is copied from the 
"Blue Hen's Chicken." 

BY S. V. CHAMBERS. 

Some are toiling hard for pleasure, 

In the fleeting things of time; 
Hoarding up their earthly treasure, 

Digging deep in sorrow's mine. 

Some the midnight lamp are burning, 

Lost in books they sit alone; 
Thinking that a store of learning. 

May for wealth and health atone. 

Others to the wars are speeding, 

Seeking for a wreath of fame; 
Death, nor blood, nor carnage heeding, 

So they gain a w"arrior's name. 

Some for beauty now are sighing. 

Using every hidden art; 
Paint and powder oft applying. 

To enchain some roving heart. 

Some are wasting precious hours, 

In the ball-room, o'er the bowl; 
Heeding not the storm that lowers. 

O'er the much neglected soul? 

Why should mortals thus be drinking, 

Pleasure in the things of time; 
Never once of judgment thinking, 

Or the blacken 'd list of crime? 

Cease to court this earthly stranger. 
Stop and spend a solemn thought; 

The soul is precious, why endanger. 
That which is so dearly bought. 



MEMOIR OP THE MILFORD BARD. 29 

The death of the Bard produced a considerable sensation inWihuington, and 
was succeeded by the regret of his friends in Baltimore and elsewhere. A 
number of pieces were written upon his death, most of which were published 
in the Blue Hen's Chicken. With the insertion of two of these we close this 
brief memoir. 

1 lirge on i{ie lmt[i of ttie Jfiilforh fmk 

BY ROMEO. 

The shaft of Death with fatal aim, 

Has pierced the tuneful throng, 
And high within the dome of fame, 

Has slain a child of song. 
That mind of genius and of lore, 

Touch 'd with Promethean fire, 
Alas! its music swells no more 

Among the earthly choir; 
Cold is the hand that touched the string. 
And hushed the chords symphonious ring, 

And broken is his lyre. 

No more the rosy wreath he'll twine. 

From legendary flowers; 
No more he'll lead the tuneful Nine 

To trip in fancy's bowers; 
No more he'll sing his country's fame. 

Warm'd by her heroes' fire; 
duench'd is the patriotic flame 

That did those thoughts inspire; 
Cold lies in death his honored brow. 
His heart is still and pulseless now, 

And broken is his lyre. 

No more his soul that lyre shall tune 

With sweet enchanting spell, 
Like warbling birds in lovely June, • 

Or harp .Cohan's swell; 
No more will beauty's rosy blush. 

His melting muse inspire, 
Or his responsive feelings gush 

Upon the trembling wire; 
Chilled is that heart's impulsive move. 
That felt the thrilling touch of love. 

And broken is his lyre. 

But friends bereav'd refrain from woe, 
There's peace for him you love, 



30 



MEMOIR OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

Though one less harp is heard below, 

There is one more above; 
Although he sleeps beneath the sod, 

A form without its fire. 
His soul ascendeth to his God, 

Among the happy choir; 
And there with that seraphic throng, 
He joins with an immortal tongue. 

And strikes anew his lyre. 



Sin MnmhU €x\hh 

TO THE MEMORY OF THE MILFO£D BARD. 

The Bard that erst so sweetly sung, 

To the cold and silent grave hath gone; 
His lyre hangs on the yew, unstrung — 

His chamber is all dark and lone. 
The Poet's soul, its mystic flight 

Hath winged from this drear world of sin. 
Upward, to those glorious realms of light. 

Whose courts no sorrow reigns within. 
His lifeless body, let us bear. 

And lay it in a marble tomb; 
And let us ever nurture there 

The Amaranth's unfading bloom. G 



THE WIZARD OF VALLEY FORGE. 



OR THE 



tkn^t ai t\t Hlptems Pan. 



CHAPTER I. 

" Our fortress is the good green wood, 
Our tent the cypress tree ; 
We know the forest round us, 
As seamen know the sea."— Sono of Mabion' 



Men. 




N the 11th of December, 1777, was seen the 
^j American Army, consisting of 12,000 regulars, 
and 3,000 militia, under the command of the 
now world-worshipped Washington, on the 
road from White Marsh to Valley Forge ; and 
a more miserable looking army never followed 
that redoubtable hero John FalstafT, of whom 
the immortal Shakspeare has given us so graphic 
a description. But notwithstanding their mis- 
erable appearance, never did a braver set of 
men endure hardships in the cause of liberty — 
hardships that would appal the stoutest at the 
present time, and such as are unknown to our 
soldiers at this day. 

No language is adequate to the task of de- 
scribing the privations and sufferings through 
which these self-devoted men passed, that they and their posterity 
might enjoy the blessings of freedom. Shoes and shirts were a 
luxury among them. Thousands were barefooted, and as they 
trod with their scarred and cracked feet the frozen ground, they 
left their tracks in blood. Some poor fellows could boast of havin'J 
one whole shirt, which, when taken off, would almost be moved 
4 



26 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

by vermin ; some had only a piece of one, while the greater part 
had none at all. To cap the climax of misery, but a very few had 
the luxury of a blanket in which to wrap themselves at night, and 
as straw could not be obtained, the greater part were under the 
necessity of sleeping on the humid ground, fast to which they 
were not unfrequently found frozen in the morning. 

Scarcely had Washington established himself in his winter-quar- 
ters, ere it was found that the magazines did not contain much 
more than a single day's provision. Benumbed with cold, and 
enfeebled by hunger, disease was the consequence ; and the hos- 
pitals were filled up as fast as the dead were removed. A fatal 
fetor arose from the multitude of sick soldiers, confined in badly 
constructed buildings, and hospital fever was the consequence, 
which could not be alleviated or warded off by wholesome diet, 
change of linen, and proper medicines, as none of them were to 
be had. Even the coarsest diet, and that in small quantities, was 
scarcely attainable. 

More than three thousand of these brave men were exempted 
from duty on account of their nakedness, and the sufferings they 
endured from intense cold. "The patience with which these pa- 
triotic votaries of freedom endured such complicated evils," says a 
distinguished female historian, " is, we believe, without a parallel 
in history. To go to battle, cheered by the trumpet and the drum, 
with victory or the speedy bed of honor before the soldier, requires 
a heroic effort; much more to starve, to freeze, to lie down and 
die, in silent obscurity. Sparta knew the names of the three hun- 
dred who fell for her at the Pass of Thermopylae ; but America 
knows not the names of the hundreds who perished for her in the 
Camp of Valley Forge." 

But though their names are unknown, their memory has been 
immortalized on the imperishable pages of history as martyrs, who 
perished to perpetuate the sacred principles of freedom, and the 
glorious privileges we enjoy; and which we are bound, by every 
impulse of honor and gratitude, to transmit untarnished to the 
millions yet unborn. Ye mothers of America — ye daughters of 
the illustrious women of Sevemty-Six ; tench your sons and 
daughters the story of the mighty sacrifice ; of the melancholy mar- 
tyrdom of those who immolated themselves on the sacred altar of 
their country — teach them the story of the suffering and death 
which the heroic sons and daughters of Seventy-Six endured, that 
they may learn the price of liberty ; that they may realize the value 
of the virtues that achieved it ; and of the privileges they enjoy ; 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 27 

and that their hearts may be imbued with a sense of the gratitude 
they owe to the illustrious men who planned, and the brave sol- 
diers who battled and bled for freedom. The virtues and the valor 
of those men and mothers must not be forgotten. They must 
brighten still brighter, as they roll down the restless tide of time ; 
and the youth of our country shall catch inspiration from the death- 
less deeds recorded on the record of renown, and at the shrines of 
those martyrs of emancipated America. 

There were several causes to which the sad and suffering con- 
dition of the American army could be traced, the first of which I 
shall mention, is that of bills of credit, which had depreciated in 
value one-fourth. Linen and leather had become extremely scarce, 
and contracts had been entered into by the commissaries, at ten 
per cent, more than the price at which they were sold. Congress 
refused to accede to this arrangement, and stipulated that bills of 
credit should be paid as specie for supplies. The result was, that 
the materials could not be procured on these conditions; for the 
paper currency was vastly depreciated, and all articles of consump- 
tion had advanced in price. 

To add to the distress of the great and good Washington, many 
of his bravest and brightest officers resigned their stations in the 
army, disgusted at the degraded situation in which they were 
placed; for, after having spent their private fortunes in endeavor- 
ing to support the dignity to which they were entitled, they found, 
that so far from being able to make a respectable appearance, and 
live as officers of rank should live, they were unable to procure 
the necessaries of life. 

To cap the climax of Washington's troubles, and to show his 
virtues in still brighter light, intrigues were got up against that 
great man, and all the influences of envy and calumny were 
brought to blast him. The object was to disgust him with his sit- 
uation as commander-in-chief, and thus drive him from the arn)y ; 
that General Gates might be promoted, whose fame was just then 
in its zenith, on account of his brilliant success in the capture of 
Burgoyne and his whole army. 

One of the principal men engaged in this attempt to break down 
Washington, was General Conway, from France, a wily intriguer, 
and charged with being the author of the letters signed D'Lisle. 
He represented to all the members of Congress that there was no 
order or regulation in the Camp at Valley Forge, and he was ap- 
pointed inspector-general by Congress. Congress received a 
remonstrance from Pennsylvania, censuring in strong language 



28 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

the measures of Washington : and another from members from 
Massachusetts, Samuel Adams being one of them They were dis- 
pleased that a Virginian should command the army, instead of one of 
their own generals, whom they ranked as superior to Washington. 
Gates and Mifflin, both believed to be engaged in the machinations 
against the commander-in-chief, were placed at the head of a 
board of war; and Congress, at the suggestion of this board, 
ordered an expedition against Canada, without consulting Wash- 
ington. He was ordered to detach La Fayette for the object, but 
he was recalled from Albany, and the expedition there ended. 

During this dark crusade of envy and calumny against suffering 
virtue, the confidence of Congress in the commander-in-chief was 
shaken ; but persecuted virtue ever comes forth from the fiery 
ordeal more bright and beautiful, and thus it was with the man 
whose memory is now enshrined in the hearts of all. 



CHAPTER II. 




<' I have seen an American General and liis officers, without pay, and almost without 
clothes, dining on roots, and drinking water, and all these privations undergone for Liberty." 

Reply op a British Officer to Col. Watson. 

)HE indignation of the army and of the people surpassed 
any thing that language can portray, when the intrigues 
against Washington were revealed. The soldiers were 
excited to the highest degree against the authors of this 
persecution, particularly Conway ; and even Samuel Adams found 
it unsafe to approach the army. In the camp, the cottage, and the 
cabinet, all were exasperated ; and this gave the tories, and the 
British army quartered in Philadelphia, much comfort, as they 
hoped it would result in the resignation of Washington. Conway 
was succeeded as inspector-general by Baron Steuben, a Prussian 
officer, and dared not make his appearance among the soldiers. 

It was a beautiful morning in the Spring of 1778; the lofty 
woodlands of Valley Forge were alive with feathered songsters, 
and all nature was bursting from her long and dreary sleep to put 
on her gorgeous robe of green, when Washington, who had long 
been reflecting in his tent on the dangers which had, and still sur- 
rounded him, arose, went forth, and taking the arm of La Fayette, 
proceeded along the road which led to the Forge. The army was 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 29 

encamped on the high hill, which rises to the east of that place, 
and they were taking the western road, occasionally stopping to 
survey the lofty hills covered with dark woodlands, which arose in 
all their gloomy grandeur at a little distance in the south. They 
were surrounded on all sides with dark dense woodlands, some of 
the oaks of which had perhaps braved the storms of a thousand 
years, and they were deeply engaged in conversation. 

"Think no more of the matter," said La Fayette, "for I assure 
you. General, that Congress has seen its error, in listening to the 
machinations of those envious men." 

" I have never noticed my personal enemies," returned Wash- 
ington, "for I have enough to do to contend with the enemies of 
my country." 

" You have triumphed over the one," rejoined La Fayette, "and 
God grant that you may yet triumph over the other. It is rumored 
that your countrymen, now in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, Silas 
Deane, and Arthur Lee, have negotiated a treaty with France, and 
if so, which God grant it may be, you may bid defiance to the lion 
of England." 

" God grant it may be so," repeated Washington, who had partly 
fallen into a musing mood, " for we are surrounded by dangers on 
every side, not least of which are the foes who are in our very 
midst, yet who profess to be our friends. Nothing but the mio-hty 
arm of God can lead us to victory." 

As Washington spoke, he lifted up his eyes to Heaven, and 
stood for a moment in a sublimely solemn attitude, wrapt as it 
were in devotion. La Fayette was silent. 

" Yes," continued Washington, as they turned into a by-path 
that led into the very depth of the forest, " I am satisfied that the 
power alone of Him, who spoke the universe into existence, can 
give a handful of men in distress, the victory over the legions of 
England, fresh from the well-fought fields of Europe ; and to Him 
alone I shall look for strength to put down our enemies. If God 
is with us, the treaty with France has been made, and we shall 
triumph." 

" We shall triumph," repeated a mysterious person, in a hollow, 
sepulchral voice, who was seated on a hollow tree to the left of the 
path which they were pursuing. Washington instantly drew his 
sword, and demanded — "Are you a friend or foe? — speak." 

" You have nothing to fear from me," after some pause, said the 
strange looking individual. " You have seen me ere this, and you 
will no doubt see me again, ere the war is ended." 



30 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

" Your manner, as well as your meaning, is mysterious," ob- 
served La Fayette, as he stood with a pistol in his hand ; the 
thought flashing upon his mind, tliat they might be surprised by a 
party of tories, or the British in disguise, and concealed in the 
woods ; inasmuch as tories were said to reside in the neighbor- 
hood of Valley Forge, and as the British general, in Philadelphia, 
by order of his government, had offered a large reward to any per- 
son wh(» would bribe, or by stratagem bear otf any of the principal 
American officers ; and an immense reward to the daring indivi- 
dual who should take, or betray George Washington, into the 
hands of the British. 

"Put up your weapons, gentlemen," said the mysterious man, 
"for I again assure you that you have nothing to fear, but much to 
hope from me. I know you both, though I am unknown to you, 
and must remain so; for my history is beyond your reach. Seek 
not, I beseech you, to know me any further, that I may volunta- 
rily be of service to you." 

Washington could not avoid smiling at the idea of such a 
looking object being of service to him ; yet he was staggered at 
his confident tone, and the still more mysterious language which 
he used. How such an abject looking being could be of any ser- 
vice to the army he was at a loss to conjecture ; but Washington 
had sufficient knowledge of human nature to know, that it is not 
always safe to judge, or form an estimate of a man's character or 
qualities, by his external appearance. 

" Who are you, and from whence?" enquired Washington, as 
he approached the mysterious man. 

" You do not know who I am, and never can, as I told you be- 
fore," returned the stranger. " My present habitation, like your 
own, is in the dark forest of Valley Forge; yet, mean as I may 
appear to you, I have moved amid the mightiest men, and shone 
in the princely palaces and courts of Europe; have trod the halls 
of grandeur and gaiety, and am not unknown in the temples of 
learning. But pardon me, I can say no more ; save to assure you 
that no coward blood runs in my veins, and that I am not what I 
seem." 

If Washington and La Fayette were excited by curiosity before, 
they were still more so now ; and they stood for a time gazing 
upon him, with a consciousness that he was a man of no ordinary 
stamp, as was now strongly evinced by his manner, and still more 
by his language. A man of superior intellect and education, may 
be easily distinguished from one of an opposite character. There 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 31 

is a nameless something, a peculiarity of mien and manner, which 
I cannot describe, that renders him as readily distinguished from 
an ordinary and ignorant man, though there may be no difference 
in dress, as he would be by difference in features. 

"We are satisfied," said Washington, "that you are not what 
you seem ; and we would fain know your history, and render you 
any assistance in our power; but as you have forbidden any fur- 
ther enquiry, we will not intrude." 

" As to assistance," returned the stranger, with a polite obei- 
sance, " I need it not ; but I expect to assist you and your nation, 
in rending asunder the chains that have so long rattled on your 
arms, and in hurling to the earth the galling yoke that has so long 
bowed you to ihe dust. All I ask is, to have free access to your 
person, and permission to enter and leave the camp, when and at' 
what time I please." 

"But," returned Washington, as he turned his scrutinizing eye 
on the stranger, " we must have confidence " 

"Ah," replied the truly mysterious man, "when you know me 
longer, you will like me better; that is, if you will always know 
me, for I am like Protoeus — I assume many shapes. Would you 
know whether I am an American at heart? Look at that." 

He handed him a copy of an oath, taken by him before a civil 
officer who was well known to Washington ; a powerful oath, 
never to rest until the country should be freed from the thraldom 
of Great Britain, and he had revenged his injuries, without stating 
what they were. At this moment a lieutenant, in company with 
another officer, approached the interesting spot, from the interior 
of the forest. 

" His Excellency, the commander-in-chief, and General La Fay- 
ette," exclaimed the officer, "in conversation with the strangest, 
most mysterious being I have ever seen !" 

"Lieutenant, do you know this man .'^" enquired Washington. 

" As much, I presume, your Excellency," replied the lieutenant, 
" as any one does; for he is the most singular and deceptive be- 
ing I have ever met." 

" Did I ever deceive you ?" enquired the stranger, with a haughty 
air, and drawing himself up to his full height. 

"You misunderstand me," returned the lieutenanl, "1 only 
meant that it was hard to comprehend you. Why, gentlemen, at 
the taking of Burgoyne he fought like a tiger; was at one time 
down on the field, with a stalwart Hessian over hinfi, in the act of 
giving him his death-warrant, when he suddenly drew a pistol, and 



0'a WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

sent a ball to the heart of his antagonist. At another time I saw 
him battling, single-handed, with three Englishmen, when 1 went 
to his assistance. I have met him on several occasions; but had 
he not made himself known, I should never have recognized him 
as the same being. He is here, there, and every where." 

" He may be of service to us," said Washington, turning to La 
Fayette. 

"Right," returned La Fayette, "especially in secret expedi- 
tions." 

"You will find in me a friend," observed the stranger, "though 
you may not at all times recognize me as such." 

"Then," said Washington earnestly, "I will see that your wish 
shall be gratified — you shall at all times have free access to the 
camp, and my person. To have fought against Burgoyne is a suffi- 
cient recommendation, and entitles you to my regard." 

"I ask no further favors," returned the mysterious stranger. 
" What services I may render, will be as much to gratify my own 
revenge, as to benefit you and your country. Seek not to know 
who I am, as your curiosity would be gratified at the cost of my 
services. In other words, the knowledge you would acquire, 
would place it out of my power to benefit you. Be not surprised 
at any disguise I may assume, or at any situation in which I may 
be placed; but be assured of my fidelity. Be my disguise still 
impenetrable, my name unknown. Should I ask any assistance, 
render it, without seeking to know the why or wherefore. This is 
all I have to ask, and you to grant; and if I do not render you 
service, it will be because it is beyond my power — if I prove re- 
creant to my vow, may the lightnings of Heaven " 

"Enough," exclaimed Washington, interrupting him. 

All stood gazing on the mysterious individual with perfect as- 
tonishment ; not so much at what he promised, as at the confi- 
dence and dignity of his language and manner, which so ill ac- 
corded with his plebeian appearance. His dress consisted of a pair 
of linsey-woolsey trowsers, instead of breeches; an old vest, a 
slouched hat, a pair of coarse brogues, and a check shirt, but no 
coat. His person was more remarkable. His head was peculiarly 
intellectual. His forehead, which was extremely high and broad, 
jutted far over his keen penetrating eyes, which were black as jet, 
and gave to his countenance the expression of deep thoughtful- 
ness. There was nothing remarkable about his face, save his 
compressed mouth, which was strongly indicative of a determined 
spirit — a spirit as dauntless as it was determined. The whole face 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 33 

and form, manner and movement, were indicative of an educated 
and enlightened being, born to command, and to move in a higher 
sphere than that in which he seemed to move. His form, built for 
activity, seemed to be, and was endowed with Herculean strength; 
for he gave a proof of it by lifting the lieutenant from the ground, 
who was of ordinary size, with one arm, at arm's length. He also 
amused the company by bending down a young tree, which two 
of them could not accomplish. 

It did not require the practised eye of Washington long to dis- 
cover the inherent superiority of this mysterious man; and the 
more he conversed with him, the more was he convinced that 
there was something extraordinary, as well as strange, in the being 
before him. Though weather-beaten, and weighed down by hard- 
ship, the stranger appeared to be in the full vigor of manhood; 
not more, perhaps, than forty years old, though, under the cir- 
cumstances, it was difficult to guess his age. 

"I bid you farewell," said Washington, grasping the hand of 
the stranger, "I hope we shall meet again, to our mutual benefit." 

"I hope so," repeated he; "but of our present, and future in- 
terviews, let nothing be said." 

Washington and La Fayette turned their steps towards the 
camp, attended by the officers, who were a few steps behind. 

"A strange individual," ejaculated La Fayette; "but it behooves 
you, General, to keep a look out in these troublous times, for we 
know not in whom to trust." 

"T will answer for the fidelity of this man," said one of the 
officers. 

"Ay, and so will I," replied the other, "for I saw him at the 
battle of Brandywine, fighting like a tiger. I saw him at different 
times, and marked his peculiar appearance." 

"I have no fears on the subject," said Washington, coolly. "I 
shall watch him, and be aware of the first approach of danger." 

Thus the conversation, respecting the strange individual they 
had seen, was kept up until they had reached the encampment; 
while each, and all of them, felt a secret desire to know the his- 
tory of so mysterious a man. 

The strange one, to whom we have introduced the reader, and 
whom we shall call the mysterious man, for the want of a know- 
ledge of his name, now left the spot, where he had had an inter- 
view with others, besides the officers, and wended his way to the 
place of his habitation, which was not less mysterious than the 
man who had chosen it for his abode. There was qo path to it, 
5 



34 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

for he never left it or returned to it in the same direction. In the 
very depth of the immense forest, which then extended from Valley 
Forge in a north-eastern direction, was an immense cave or cav- 
ern, the walls and roof of which were of solid rock. The door or 
opening which led to it, was down a narrow defile of rocks, cov- 
ered with earth and shrubbery, and so completely embosomed, that 
a person might pass over and around it many times, without being 
aware of the existence of a cave, or perceiving the entrance to it. 
A man might stand in the door or opening, and not be seen by a 
person within a k\v feet of him, so complete was the roof of rocks 
over his head. 

In this gloomy cavern resided the mysterious man; and here he 
concocted his plans. If the reader will follow me, I will introduce 
him into the wild, yet not uncomfortable dwelling. The roof was 
about ten feet from the floor; and from the great hall in the cen- 
tre, extended several recesses on either side; in one of which the 
mysterious man made his bed, and in another he wrote; having a 
shelving rock for his desk, which was so completely adapted to 
the purpose, that it seemed formed by the hand of art. This re- 
cess was just opposite the door-way, and sufficient light was ad- 
mitted to answer his purpose. At the furthest extreme was an 
opening, which served for a chimney; and with a moderate fire, 
he was comfortable: so entirely was he screened from the stormy 
blasts of winter. 



CHAPTER III. 

« Now is the Winter of our discontent, 
Made glorious Summer by this son of York ; 
And all the clouds that lower'd above our house, 
In the deep bosom of the ocean hurled." — Shakspkare. 

^ sg^HE bells in various towns were ringing out merry peals; 
ar^-l- the roar of cannon reverberated alonor a hundred hills, 

iJfvK ■ ■ ■ 

and bonfires and illuminations told the joy of the peo- 
ple, at the tidings of a ratification of a treaty with the 
French government, the old rival and enemy of England. Joy 
was depicted on every American face; while, on the contrary, the 
British were struck with dismay, though they affected to treat the 
matter with contempt. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 35 

Washington despatched La Fayette with 2,000 men, and posted 
them at Baron Hill, about ten miles in front of the army at Valley 
Forge. This was an advanced guard, which was intended to ha- 
rass the British army, in case it attempted to retreat to New York. 

The news of the capture of Burgoyne and his whole army, had 
excited an intense sensation throughout Europe, and particularly 
in England; which, together with that of a treaty between France 
and the United Colonies, caused despondency in every British 
bosom; for they had sent generals and soldiers to America that 
were considered invincible, and inferior to none in Europe. These 
had been vanquished, and they knew not what course to pursue; 
for if the raw, undisciplined, badly fed, and worse clothed Ameri- 
cans, were more than a match for the flower of Europe's chivalry; 
what was to be expected when those soldiers should become con- 
fident from success, and perfected in discipline by practice and 
experience ? 

The British government feared, also, that Canada might revolt, 
and make common cause with the Colonies; and a proposition 
was made in Parliament, to send commissioners to America, with 
powers to grant all that the Colonies asked before the commence- 
ment of hostilities, in case they would lay down their arms, and 
return to their allegiance. This measure was opposed and advo- 
cated with great warmth, but the ministry prevailed, and Governor 
Johnstone, the Earl of Carlisle, and William Eden, were appointed 
and despatched on the mission. The ministry had other objects 
in view, in case the commission failed in their first object; which 
were to make efforts to corrupt, bribe, and divide the people. It 
was too late to be successful in the first, and we shall record their 
efforts in the latter. 

An inferior otficer had deserted from the detachment under the 
command of La Fayette, at Baron Hill; and had communicated 
to the British commander, in Philadelphia, the situation and re- 
sources of the American band. The consequence was, a deter- 
mination to annihilate, if possible, this portion of the heroic, suf- 
fering followers of Washington. 

"Thank God!" exclaimed a beautiful dark haired girl, whose 
dazzling eyes were fixed with intense emotion on a young man 
who stood before her, "thank God, that you, Charles, have at last 
been prevailed on to abandon the unrighteous cause of the rebels, 
and return to your allegiance to your lawful sovereign. Never 
could I have accepted your hand on any other terms." 



36 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

The last sentence was spoken in an under tone, for they were 
in the midst of a party of ladies and gentlemen, in the parlor of 
one of the most splendid buildings that then graced the city of 
Philadelphia. Charles Moreland hung his head, for he was not 
satisfied in his own mind of the correctness of the step which he 
had taken, or that the cause he had forsaken was an unrighteous 
one. Far, very far, was his conscience from approving his con- 
duct, and the word, "traitor," rung like a death-knell in his ears. 
But an absorbing passion that had grown with him from childhood, 
and now amounted to adoration, swayed his soul; and so devoted 
was he to the fair Charlotte Summers; so completely fascinated 
was he by her resplendent charms of person, mind and manners, 
that he would have sacrificed his life for her, had it been impossi- 
ble by other means to obtain her hand. 

"Cheer up, my boy," said Mr. Summers, "you are not only en- 
titled to the hand of my daughter, but to the thanks of all loyal, 
well disposed people." 

"Ay," added Mrs. Summers, "and you will receive a higher 
commission in the British, than you held in the rebel army. Here 
is Mr. Mandeville, just arrived from England, and with whom we 
became acquainted by accident, who can inform you of the bril- 
liant offers made to all who will relinquish the rebel cause." 

Charles, who had hung his head in apparent reflection, now 
looked up, and catching a glimpse of the person spoken of, started, 
he knew not why. It seemed that he had seen that face before, 
yet it could not be, as he had just arrived from England. Still 
there was a something, a je ne sais quoi, as the French call it, 
which caused him to shudder, whenever he caught the eye of Mr. 
Mandeville. 

" As you have just arrived from England, Mr. Mandeville," ob- 
served Mr. Summers, " you cannot conceive with what desperation 
these rebels fight. Who could have believed that General Bur- 
goyne and his whole army would have been taken by a shirtless, 
shoeless, and half-starved set of ploughmen ?" 

" Though I am an Englishman," returned Mr. Mandeville, "I 
should say that they were the very men to accomplish such a tri- 
umph ; for what may not men accomplish who will endure such 
privations, and who are fighting for their own homes, their firesides, 
their wives and children, to say nothing of the freedom of their 
posterity." 

" They cannot stand the contest long," said Mr. Summers, " and 
though I was born in America, I ardently hope to see the day 



■WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 37 

when Washington will fall into the hands of the British, for whom 
already large rewards have been offered." 

" That will be a difficult matter to accomplish," said Mandeville- 
" He is too good a soldier, and too wary a man." 

" Why, Mr. Mandeville," exclaimed Summers, smiling, '• did 
you not stand before an Englishman, I should take you to be a 
rebel." 

" Rebel or not. Sir," said Mandeville, " I would gladly know 
the mode or manner in which that hero could be entrapped." 

" Would you hesitate at being concerned in taking him, Man- 
deville. I have a scheme on foot " 

" Not a moment," exclaimed Mandeville warmly, at the same 
time interrupting him. "Nothing would give me a greater plea- 
sure than to know your plan, and to hold a villain up to the exe- 
cration of mankind." 

" Come this way, my dear Mandeville," said Summers, and they 
retired to another room. 

" Well, Charles, have you told Sir Henry Clinton all about that 
Frenchman's situation at Baron Hill ?" enquired Mrs. Summers. 

Charles, at these words, turned aside and burst into tears. The 
thought of the price he had paid for the hand of Charlotte Sum- 
mers, which price was no less than that of having turned traitor to 
his country, harrowed up his soul. 

"Fie, Charles, for shame!" continued Mrs. Summers. "Do 
you weep that you have obtained the fair hand that you so ardently 
sought, or that you have done your duty by returning to your alle- 
giance to your lawful sovereign ? Neither of these should be a 
cause of grief. Cheer up, for you will yet have cause to rejoice 
that you have done your duty." 

" I have a presentiment of evil," returned Charles, sorrowfully. 
"As I was walking alone, I encountered a strange looking being, 
who represented himself as a soothsayer or fortune-teller, and cer- 
tainly no man, if man he was, ever more thoroughly embodied my 
ideas of what a wizard should be, than did he. I threw him a 
piece of silver, and humorously asked him to tell my fortune. My 
blood even now runs cold at the recollection of his solemn man- 
ner, and the expression of his face, as he foretold my destiny." 

"And what was it?" enquired Charlotte and her mother simul- 
taneously, both laughiiig. 

"Ah!" returned Charles, "I laughed myself when he com- 
menced ; but he seemed so earnest and so emphatic, that though 



38 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

I have never believed in supernatural revelations, a cold chill crept 
over me, and I shuddered." 

"But what was it, Charley?" asked Charlotte, playfully imitating 
the melancholy manner of Charles. 

"I shudder to think of it. He foretold that I should meet the 
doom of a traitor to my country, and that those, by whose influ- 
ence I was actuated, would " 

" My dear child, what is the matter ?" enquired Mrs. Summers. 
" You are pale and trembling." 

"I cannot go on," said Charles; "for the bare recollection of 
the man and his manner, freezes my very soul." 

" Well, well," observed Charlotte, " these notions will pass away 
when you are a great officer in the king's army." 

"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Summers, as he and Mande- 
ville entered the parlor. 

"Oh! nothing," returned Charlotte, gaily, " only Charley has 
been frightened at the goblin story of a wizard." 

"The wizard — right," said Mr. Mandeville, apparently musing, 
" I have seen this same wizard of the forest, and never were the 
predictions of a prophet more certainly verified. If he forbodes 
you good or evil, you may rely upon its fulfilment ; for I am told 
he is deeply skilled in astrology, and reads events in the stars, as 
others do in books." 

Charles started, and the company were silent. 

" Well," continued Mandeville, " we must part for the present." 

"And may we meet again to the fulfilment of our wishes, and 
the triumph of the king," added Summers, as he advanced and 
cordially shook him by the hand. 

"And may we all triumph, as well as the cause of the good 
king George," said Mrs. Summers, " in spite of the wizard." 

" Amen 1" shouted Charlotte, with a hearty laugh, as Mandeville 
opened the door, bowed, and descended the marble steps. 

Summers was a wealthy man before the commencement of the 
war, but during the war he had amassed much, by furnishing the 
British army with supplies, and other acts of toryism. He owned a 
farm not far distant from Valley Forge, at which he frequently resided 
in the pleasant season. His principles were known to few persons ; 
he had, like Janus, two faces ; one for the Americans, and the other 
for the British. This man, on account of his wealth, had great 
influence ; and Washington had long doubted his fidelity, though 
he had no positive proof that he was opposed to the cause of the 
colonies. Summers had three daughters, one of whom had eloped 



■WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 39 

with a captain in the American army, to whom she had been mar- 
ried, in spite of the entreaties of her parents. This was Nora, the 
eldest, Charlotte had long been addressed by Charles Moreland, 
but not being so self-willed as her sister, they prevailed upon her to 
make the apostacy of Charles from the cause of freedom, the price 
of her hand. This, the young man had long resisted, for he had 
risen from the ranks by his own bravery, and was known by the 
appellation of the "hero;" and his pride, to say nothing of his 
patriotism, revolted against changing that honorable title for that 
of traitor. But though he withstood all other temptations, his 
heart was not proof against the fascinating power of beauty ; and 
by listening to the seducing language that fell from the lips of the 
lovely Charlotte, he, in an unguarded moment, pledged himself to 
renounce the cause of freedom, and to fly from the American 
army. Mr. and Mrs. Summers both joined in persuading him to 
take that step, promising him preferment in the British army, as 
well as a rich reward. The mind of Charles was not yet fully 
reconciled to the sacrifice he was about to make, for he had not 
irrevocably passed the barrier which would blast him. He might 
yet, if he would, return. 

" You seem dejected, Charles," said Mr. Summers. 

" I know not what to do," replied the unhappy young man. 

" Can you hesitate a moment ?" interrogated Mrs. Summers. 
" Can you hesitate a moment, when fame, fortune, friends, and a 
beautiful bride await you ?" 

"I am fearful," returned Charles, "that my dereliction from 
duty will bring ruin on us all. In the perplexity of my mind, I 
know not what course to pursue. To delay, even, will be fatal. 
May God direct me what to do for the best." 

"Poh! poh! Charles," said Mr. Summers, "give not way to fool- 
ish fear. What harm can reach you, when under British protec- 
tion ?" 

"Indeed," rejoined Mrs. Summers, "you pay but a poor com- 
pliment to Charlotte, whose heart and hand you protested you 
prized above all else in the world. And now you hesitate in doing 
that which it is plainly your duty to do. You hesitate in laying 
down the arms you had raised in rebellion against your lawful 
king, and in returning to your duty; when honor, wealth, friends, 
and the hand of her you profess to adore, are to be your reward!" 

"Well, I will think of it further," said Charles, as he took up his 
hat and left the room. 



40 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Oh! what a fearful fellow!" exclaimed Mr. Summers. "He 
starts at his own shadow. But we shall bring him to the sacrifice 
of his darling hobby, and mushroom reputation. We'll rob the 
rebels of one brave fellow, at all events; and Nora shall be made 
to repent her bargain, and her rebel notions, before a great while." 

"Yes," rejoined Mrs. Summers, "her ragamuffin husband, like 
the rest of the rebel officers, has scarcely enoygh to eat and cover 
his own nakedness, without having a wife dependent on him." 

"You'll see her sneaking home before long," said Charlotte. 

"She need not come here," said Mr. Summers. "Let her find 
friends among those whose cause she has espoused. She hns no 
reason to expect sympathy from us." 

"Right!" exclaimed Mrs. Summers; "if she had not been told 
beforehand what she had to expect, I would not be so severe; 
but when I remonstrated with her respecting her marrying that 
Captain Danvers, she had the impudence to stand up for the rebel 
cause. But she'll repent her rash, runaway adventure, as sure as 
I'm a dutiful subject of the good king George." 

"Ay!" rejoined Mr. Summers, "how willingly will she sneak 
back to the family, when George Washington shall be delivered 
into the hands of the British general, and the upstart rebels shall 
have been put down, as they ought to be. If we succeed in the 
undertaking, which I expect to do, we shall be immortalized in 
history, and celebrated throughout the world. Wealth will be 
showered upon us, and I expect nothing else but that we shall be 
among the nobility." 

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Mrs. Summers, "but won't that be a 
glorious triumph! We can then look down upon those who now 
hate us, because we do not favor the rebel cause." 

"Oh! happy, happy day !" exclaimed Charlotte. "How I would 
like to move among the nobility, and be styled her grace and her 
ladyship!" 

"Oh! yes," shouted Mrs. Summers, "won't it sound grand to 
be called his grace, the Duke of Summers, and the Duchess of 
Summers; or Lord and Lady Summers?" 

"And the Marquis and Marchioness of Moreland," screamed 
Charlotte, "won't that sound delightfully grand? Oh! it makes 
my heart leap with pleasure, to think of it." 

"You must remember," said Mr. Summers, putting his finger 
on his lips, "that all this glory will depend upon your keeping the 
matter a profound secret. The truth is, I never should have con- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD, 41 

tided it to women, for it has been discovered by a profound natu- 
ralist, what the cause is that a woman cannot keep a secret." 

"What is it?" enquired both at once. 

"Why, it has been discovered," returned Mr. Summers, "that 
Eve, the mother of all mankind, instead of being made out of one of 
Adam's ribs, was manufactured out of the greater part of his tongue." 

"How, in the name of sense, could that prevent her from keep- 
ing a secret?" asked the beautiful Charlotte, laughing. 

"Because she has an irresistible propensity to talk," returned 
Mr. Summers; "and she must and will talk. Nothing gives her 
greater pleasure than to have something to tell." 

"You have a very contemptible opinion of our sex, my Lord 
Summers," observed Mrs. Summers, with a dignified courtesy. 
"Nothing more than the sex deserves," said Mr. Summers. 

"It shews," returned Charlotte, "the generous, confiding, social 
disposition of woman. If she enjoys any thing, she is willing to 
share it with her neighbor. Unlike the selfish disposition of man, 
she wishes others to know what she knows; to feel what she feels; 
and to enjoy what she enjoys." 

"Yes," retorted her father, "and if the revelation would hang a 
dozen men, she could not resist the pleasure of telling what she 
hears. But I hope you will take heed and be silent. Our inten- 
tion is now known but to ourselves and Mr. Mandeville; as our 
company left when he entered. If our intention should be revealed, 
it would bring eternal ruin to us all." 

"It will never go from us," said Mrs. Summers. 

"No, never," chimed in Charlotte, haughtily, as the three left 
the parlor. 

Before the sun had sunk in the western heavens, it was whis- 
pered over the whole city, that an attempt was on foot to betray 
General Washington into the hands of the British, with a thousand 
and one variations and embellishments; though, luckily, no parti- 
cular person or persons were designated as the leaders of the enter- 
prise. Mrs. Summers had confided the profound secret never to 
be divulged, to her dear friend Mrs. Simpson, in whose secrecy 
she had the most implicit confidence; and Mrs. Simpson had con- 
fided the secret to her confidential friend, on whose silence she 
could rely. Mrs. Pemberton told it to her husband. Charlotte, 
too, had told it to the Misses Crumptons, who were never known 
to divulge a secret. The story, of course, lost nothing in its tra- 
vels; but at last became so overburthened with embellishments, 
that nobody would believe it in any form whatever 
6 




42 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 



CHAPTER IV. 

" Strange things occur in man's eventful life, 
That baffle the most cunning and the wise ; 
And such I shall relate."— Old Play. 

^URING the Spring of 1778, the British General, in Phil- 
adelphia, sent out his light troops to scour the country, 
and massacre in cold blood any unfortunate soldiers who 
fell into their hands. At the bridges of Quinton and 
Hancock, a number of American soldiers had been butchered in 
cold blood, while crying for quarter. This caused La Fayette to 
be ever on the watch. 

On a beautiful morning in May, while he was walking along the 
road at Baron Hill, listening to the incessant songs of birds in a 
neighboring copse, he insensibly fell into a musing mood ; and the 
subject on which his mind dwelt, was the strange predilections of 
man. 

" Strange," thought he, " that man, with all his reason, and all his 
capabilities for appreciating and enjoying the beautiful in nature, 
should mar it by the horrors of war! Strange that one portion of 
mankind cannot, or will not suffer another portion to enjoy life 
and liberty, without bloodshed to obtain the privilege! Here is a 
beautiful country ; a perfect Eden ; where peace and plenty alone 
should dwell; but owing to the selfish nature and vile passions of 
man, it is turned into a slaughter-house; where instead of the hum 
of peaceful industry, and the music of nature, the roar of cannon 
is heard; and instead of the husbandman returning to his happy 
home to be cheered by the smiles of his wife and children, he re- 
turns to see midnight glitter with the blaze of his burning cottage, 
and the bleeding bodies of his children, butchered by the hands of 
the Indian, or no less savage white man. Strange, indeed, are 
our notions of murder! If one man kill another in time of peace, 
he is execrated as a foul murderer; while he, who butchers by the 
wholesale, is immortalized on the pages of history, as a great man 
— when at the same time, too, he butchers those who are strug- 
gling for the rights and privileges which God has decreed to the 
whole human race. When will men learn to live in peace!" 

Thus did he muse, who had left the splendors of the French 
court, and all the fascinations of Parisian society; to battle, in the 
wilds of America, for a struggling people, whose rights had been 
trampled in the dust, and whose cries for redress were unheeded. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 43 

Suddenly lifting his head, he beheld before him an old woman, 
carrying a basket in one hand, and a staff in the other. She had 
on a short gown and petticoat, and the enormous stays worn at 
that time. A jib bonnet, of faded calico, covered her head, and 
almost concealed her face. La Fayette started with surprise, so 
sudden and unexpected was the meeting. 

"Good morning, General," said the old woman, familiarly, "I 
am happy to meet you again, and alone, too." 

"I know not that we have ever met before," returned La Fay- 
ette, turning upon her a scrutinizing gaze. 

"It matters not. General, as respects that matter. I have come 
to ascertain something more important," 

"And pray what may that be?" 

"I come to know whether you are ready to meet the enemy?" 

"What enemy. Madam, do you mean?" 

"I mean your enemy in Philadelphia — the British, sir." 

"There is no prospect of an attack from that quarter at present." 

"You are mistaken." 

"In what manner?" 

"Has not an officer deserted from your command?" 

"He has— Charles Moreland." 

"The same, sir; and he has communicated to the British Gen- 
eral some particulars which, I expect, will induce an attack. I 
come, therefore, to warn you to be in readiness to receive them." 

"I thank you for the intelligence," said La Fayette, at the same 
time offering some pieces of silver. 

"Nay, sir, I ask, and can receive, no reward." 

La Fayette stood for a moment in wonder. He had supposed 
that the object of the old woman, was to obtain a reward, as her 
tattered clothes bespoke her poverty. From this supposition, he 
had placed but little confidence in her story; but now he was led 
to appreciate her motive. His curiosity was excited. 

"Did you say we had met before?" enquired La Fayette. 

"Ay, at Valley Forge — in the forest." 

"Good heavens! can it be possible that you are the same un- 
known, that Washington and myself encountered in the woods?" 

"The same. General. By my disguise as a fortune-teller, I am 
enabled to wander where I could not otherwise go; and to obtain 
knowledge, that I could not otherwise acquire." 

"I should never have recognized you," replied La Fayette, tak- 
ing the mysterious man by the hand. "You must be some extra- 
ordinary being." 



44 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"To my art in disguising myself I am indebted for my safety; 
for I have been in the presence of, and conversed with those, who, 
had they known me, would have rejoiced to sacrifice me." 

"May God protect you!" 

"Farewell," said the mysterious man, grasping the hand of La 
Fayette, "and remember to say nothing of our interview, or of my 
disguise. I should not have made myself known, had I not wished 
to impress it upon your mind, that there is danger of an attack." 

"You may rely upon my secrecy — farewell," said La Fayette, 
who stood some time gazing at the strange being, as he trudged 
along bending on his staff, until lost in the shades of the wood- 
land. A thousand conjectures crossed the mind of La Fayette, 
with regard to the real character of that man ; but conjecture 
ended in conjecture. 

La Fayette now held his force in readiness, and he did not 
wait long for the whole British army came out of Philadelphia, 
and a detachment of five thousand men, under General Grant, 
was ordered to surprise, and cut to pieces, the forces under the 
command of La Fayette. Silently and stealthily along the road 
to Baron Hill, moved the British, under Grant, with the ex- 
pectation of taking the Americans by surprise; but, to their utter 
astonishment, they found them waiting their approach. Now 
sounded the clangor of trumpets, and the roll of drums, as the two 
forces drew up in battle array. A desperate conflict ensued. 
The British made a determined onslaught, and for a time the 
battle waxed hot. Grant urged on his men, confident of victory; 
for every thing was now in his favor. The Americans were 
doubtful; but at length La Fayette, with consummate skill and bra- 
very, made a sudden and unexpected move, aud turned the tide 
of war. The British began to waver and give way, and finally 
returned to Philadelphia; while La Fayette, with honor, removed 
to Valley Forge, to receive the congratulations of Washington. 
With two thousand suffering men, he stood triumphantly before 
five thousand choice British soldiers. 

Several ofiicers that day performed prodigies of valor, and dis- 
tinguished themselves; among whom was Captain Danvers, who, 
at the close of the engagement, was severely wounded. Nora, 
the devoted wife of DanTors, and daughter of Mr. Summers, had 
been since her marriage, living in the family of a farmer; but she 
now flew to the camp, at Valley Forge, to attend her disabled 
husband, perhaps to witness his death. He was now all in all to 
her; the only friend she had in the world, for her parents, and 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 45 

indeed the whole family, were bitterly incensed against her, for 
having eloped with a rebel. People of the present day, can 
have no conception of the bitter hatred that then existed between 
the whigs and tories. If her husband should die, she saw nothing 
but servitude and toil before her; for though her father was rolling 
in wealth, she well knew that he would hold her sin of marrying 
a whig, unpardonable, and that she could never return home as a 
daughter. Her fate was sealed in that quarter, and bitterly did 
she deplore the wounded condition of her husband. All day, and 
through the long watches of the night, did she sit in the hospital, 
administering to his wants and watching for the favorable symp- 
tom, by which she could augur his recovery. 

"Oh! Doctor," she exclaimed, with a mournful voice, as the 
surgeon entered, "tell me candidly, is there any hope." 

''He may recover; but at present the chances are against him. 
He has lost so much blood, that the energies of nature are de- 
stroyed. 

"Tell me, in one word," cried the agonized wife, foreboding 
the worst from the purport of his words, "must he die?" 

"He will die in less than three days." 

The unhappy wife burst into a paroxysm of grief, and a gush of 
tears seemed to unburthen her overloaded heart. Her husband 
slowly opened his eyes, and, fixing them upon his weeping wife, 
said, with deep emotion: 

"Do not weep, Nora; this is the fate of war, and if I die, I die 
nobly in the cause of my country." 

" I thought he was delirious," said the surgeon. " Dry up your 
tears; a change has taken place, and he will recover." 

"Heaven be praised!" exclaimed Nora, elevating her eyes, and 
clasping her hands in an attitude of devotion. "Then I shall 
have one friend remaining this side the grave." 

With that deep devotion of woman which knows no change, 
whether it be exhibited in the halls of grandeur and wealth, or in 
the hut of the humble poor, she watched beside — his bed I was 
going to say — but alas! it was only an apology for one; for as 
before stated, even straw could be obtained in only small quanti- 
ties. She watched beside his pallet, day and night, until her 
blooming and beautiful cheek began to wear the tint of the lily. 
Day and night did Nora faithfully administer medicine to her 
wounded husband, and endeavor to comfort him by cheerfully 
conversing with him, and reading to him passages from such 
books as she had brought with her. 



46 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Och! noo, and its a mighty great blessin till hev a lovin wife," 
exclaimed a fine looking young Irishman, who had distinguished 
himself at the battle of Brandywine, " till sit by ye the day, an rade, 
an be spaking the word o' comfort, whin ye hev a British ball in 
ye'er body. Och ! but its meself that 'ud be afther hevin that same 
meself." 

"Hoot, mon, awa'" said a wounded Scotsman, "ye winna 
think sic a thing, as to hae the puirguid lassie yoursel'? I wadna 
think o' sic a thing, Tam." 

"Hoot, mon, yoursel','' returned the Irishman, imitating him, 
"ye don't understand me meaning at all at all. I didn't be- afther 
sayin I'd hev the ledy meself. I intended till mane that I'd be 
afther havin one jist like herself. There's a mighty great differ 
betwaine the two, though they're jist alike." 

"True," said the Scot, "I dinna ken the meaning o't; but I 
spak out, and o' guid advisement comes nae ill. I dinna care at 
a', for I never felt the luver's joy; but I maun think the guid dame 
has nae love to spare ye." 

"Och ye spalpeen," exclaimed young Teddy, somewhat nettled, 
" the back iv me hand till ye; an sure I niver meant to mane that 
I'd begrudge another mon's wife, an its meself 'ud say ye'er a 
foolish felly, ye are." 

"Gae mind yer business, Tam. I would make ye tak that back, 
but I hae twa wounds already." 

"I'll fight ye wid a shelalah on the flure ; an ye don't hould yer 
yer tongue, I'll put me fut in yer face." 

The altercation between the two soldiers, Teddy O'Rafferty, and 
Jessy Mac Donald, waxed warmer and warmer; and a pitched 
battle would have been the consequence, had not an officer en- 
tered the hospital, and restored peace, by a threat of having them 
marched off to the guard-house and punished. 

If there is a situation in life, in which woman becomes angelic, 
it is that in which she appears at the bedside of her sick and suf- 
fering husband; and if there is a scene on earth, which the angels 
of heaven delight to witness, it is that wherein, entirely forgetful 
of herself, she devotes herself to the blessed task of alleviating the 
miseries of another. If Nora was beautiful before, thrice beau- 
tiful did she now appear, as she sat breathing hope into the de- 
sponding heart of her wounded husband. The cynic may sneer 
at the assertion, that when woman loves, she loves forever; and 
he may say with Shakspeare, 

"Frailty, thy name is woman." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 47 

but it is nevertheless true, that in her devotion she far outstrips 
man, and, with all her delicacy, she patiently endures for him she 
loves, what man would quail at, and sink under. He would have 
her, as Cassar wished his wife to be, not only virtuous, but above 
suspicion; but no sooner does a stain darken her reputation, than 
he forsakes her — he throws her from his bosom as a worthless 
weed. Not so with woman. Though a man may become steeped 
in crime, and be forsaken, nay be execrated by the world; the 
wife of his bosom, she who forsook a happy home for him, will 
follow him through good and evil report — she will follow him to 
the dark and dismal dungeon, and embrace him in his chains — 
nay, she will cling to, and plead for him, as long as a ray of hope 
illumes her mind. 

Nora Summers was indeed an amiable, lovely, as well as a 
beautiful creature. She met Captain Danvers by accident, and so 
congenial were their minds, that she soon loved him, and resolved 
to marry him, notwithstanding the bitter opposition she met from 
her parents, on account of Danvers being a devoted whig, he 
having eagerly espoused the cause of freedom as soon as hostili- 
ties commenced. Though confined to her room, she, through the 
assistance of an old domestic, made her escape at night, and fled 
with Captain Danvers to Germantown, where they were married. 

Nora was as different from the gay, gaudy, thoughtless Char- 
lotte, as though they had not been related. In their beauty alone 
was there a resemblance. Nora was all gentleness and afl^ection ; 
Charlotte was haughty, passionate and hollow-hearted. Nora had 
but one object in forming a matrimonial alliance, which was love, 
based upon her high respect for his character; while interested 
motives swayed the soul of Charlotte. Nora was faithfully de- 
voted ; Charlotte was fickle and foolish. 




48 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

CHAPTER V. 

"Things ill begun, strengthen themselves in ill." — Shakspeare. 

NGLAND, proud, imperious England, that had listened 
too long to the tyrannical measures of Lord North 
and his coadjutors, was now very willing to accede to 
the former wishes of the Colonies, and to grant what 
they had so long plead for in vain. She found that France, her 
ancient powerful enemy and antagonist, had become the ally of 
suffering, down-trodden America, and Carlisle, Eden and John- 
stone were despatched, to offer concessions; but her magnanimity 
was shown too late, for Congress now refused to negotiate on any 
other terms than the unconditional recognition of their indepen- 
dence, and the withdrawal by England of all her forces. 

The commissioners, finding that there was no prospect of suc- 
cess in that quarter, fell upon the expedient of flooding the 
country with writings, in which Congress was denounced as de- 
manding from the mother country what was unjust and injurious, 
and representing the alliance with France as the offspring of 
meanness, while the generosity and forbearance of Britain were 
extolled in the highest strains of panegyric. 

Johnstone, one of the commissioners, had at an antecedent 
period, resided in the Colonies; and subsequently, as a member of 
Parliament, he had espoused and vindicated the cause of the 
whigs. Cloaked in the influence which these circumstances gave 
him, he was peculiarly fitted to the ignoble purpose of sowing 
discord, and of corrupting the minds of the patriotic by false rep- 
resentations. He was an adroit intriguer. He had it in his power 
to approach the most influential patriots, and while he flattered 
them for their talents and conduct, he cunningly insinuated, that 
if the rebellion could be suppressed, and the authority of the 
good king George again established, that the names of those who 
aided in effecting it, would be given to immortality, and their ser- 
vices rewarded by untold wealth, titles and honors. He and his 
compeers did not hesitate at times to make direct offers of bribery. 

A number of distinguished men were tried by Johnstone without 
success, among whom was General Reed, whose answer has be- 
come famous in history. A lady was employed to meet the 
General at the house of Mr. Summers, while residing at his 
country-seat; where a party of both sexes had been assembled as 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 49 

if from mere sociability, but in reality, for the purpose — the base 
purpose, of attempting to bribe those patriotic men, on whom 
hung the destinies of America in the hour of her sore trial. 

The summer country-seat of Mr. Summers was a beautiful 
retreat from the heat and bustle of a city, though Philadelphia was 
then but a village, compared to what she has become under the 
blessed influence of those privileges for which the whigs were 
then contending. It was situated a few miles from Valley Forge, 
in the midst of a rolling and romantic country, and was surrounded 
by almost interminable woodlands in the distance, rising in the 
manner of an amphitheatre, in true majesty and grandeur. The 
house, built somewhat after the old Dutch fashion, was seated on 
an eminence overlooking the valleys around, but far below the 
sublime and solitary waste of woodland in the east and north. 
From the balcony a splendid view could be had of hill piled on 
hill, till the dark green woods seemed to bathe their heads in 
heaven. A park of old oaks in the rear of the house was appro- 
priated to the use of deer, while in front of the building was a 
beautiful garden, filled with all manner of flowers from every clime. 
The uncle of Mrs. Summers being a sea-captain, brought from 
distant shores every thing that was rare. This garden was the 
work, principally, of poor Nora, who was sympathising with her 
wounded husband in the hospital at Valley Forge, and ministering 
to his wants as far as lay in her power. Many a happy moment 
had she passed in its blooming bowers, planted by her own fair 
hands; and it was here that she first listened to the protestations 
of love breathed at her feet, by moonlight, by him who won her 
heart, and married her. 

In the large hall were assembled the gay, the grand, the gifted, 
the beautiful and the brave. Merrily passed the hours, and Mr. 
Summers was peculiarly gay and joyous, as he had ardent hopes 
of making, or having made, more than one convert to the royal 
cause. Johnstone had made him brilliant promises, in the name 
of the king, and he was secretly using all the influence he had, in 
undermining, where be could not at once corrupt, the principles of 
patriotic men. 

"What do you think, General, of the cause of freedom?" inter- 
rogated Madame Vandore, as she strolled along one of the wind- 
ing walks of the garden. "Can it succeed, think you?" 

"As sure as there's a God in Heaven," returned General Keed, 
laying deep emphasis on his words. 



50 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

"I hope it may," said the lady, anxiously looking in his face, 
"but I have my fears — indeed I have had several fearful omens in 
dreams and otherwise, that make me tremble for the result; and I 
have heard that the wizard, who roams the forest, and who is so 
deeply skilled in astrology, has foretold the speedy fall of our high 
built hopes " 

"I neither put faith in dreams nor astrology," bluffly answered 
the General, " and if all the wizards in Christendom were to tell 
me so, I would not believe them." 

"Oh! it will be a sad affair," continued the lady, affecting not 
to have paid any attention to what he said, "and an awful rec- 
koning with the Americans. Better had they never been born, 
than to have taken up arms against the mother country. I tremble 
when I think of the awful consequences." 

"It will only be the present of a hemp collar or cravat," said 
the General in a jocular manner, "and we shall not be the first 
who have been elevated for having loved liberty." 

"Ah! General, but think of the anguish such a catastrophe 
would carry to the bosoms of mourning mothers, weeping wives, 
and fatherless children; to say nothing of the odium, the deep 
disgrace, that " 

"No, Madam, you should call it glory," exclaimed the General 
warmly, at the same time interrupting her. "I should consider 
it glory to hang for the sacred cause of liberty, and as to mourning 
mothers, wives and orphans, they must take the fate that awaits 
them, as we shall." 

Madam Vandore for a moment was silent. The firmness with 
which General Reed met her suggestions, baffled her; but after 
a pause, in which she seemed absorbed in reflection, she again 
addressed him. His stern virtue was more antagonistic than she 
expected. 

"If we should fail," said she, laying great stress upon the word 
we, "it will be awful indeed! We have disregarded the repeated 
admonitions of the mother country to desist; and if we are forced 
to lay down the weapons of war, which I religiously believe will 
be the case, death and distraction will fill the land. The cry of 
mourning will be in every habitation, and it will cost the lives of 
most of our great, talented, and distinguished men." 

"And what would you do, madam, in such a case?" 

"Why, sir, if I were an American General, I would lay down 
my arms, and accept, not only mercy, but brilliant reward " 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 51 

"God of heaven!" exclaimed the General, "and would yon 
turn traitor to your country, to your home, to your God? Then, 
indeed, would that American General deserve hanging." 

" Had you rather suffer ignominious death, and send sorrow to 
every bosom in which your blood runs, than to return peaceably to 
your allegiance, blessed with wealth, honor " 

"But what surety is there of that," enquired the General, again 
interrupting her, and suddenly forming the resolution of seeing to 
what length she would go, being now satisfied that she was of the 
tory school, d)ed in the wool. "What surety, madam, has a 
General of reward, who should agree to assist in bringing the 
colonies to subjection?" 

At these words the basilisk eye of Madam Vandore gleamed 
with delight, for she was now sure that he was about to bite at the 
hook baited with gold. 

"Why, sir, he has the solemn assurance of the British govern- 
Ynent, that if he forsake the rebel cause, and assist in restoring the 
colonies to their former allegiance, he will be munificently re- 
warded." 

"But how do you know this to be true? Pardon me, madam, 
but if I accept the terms, I wish to know the certainty." 

"Well, sir, England has sent three commissioners, Carlisle, 
Eden, and Johnstone, the latter of whom assured me that if any 
General would forsake the rebel cause, and assist in putting down 
the rebels, he will be rewarded, not only with showers of gold, but 
with honors and a title." 

"That is very tempting," said the General, affecting a serious 
countenance. 

"General Reed, I am empowered to make you a confidential 
offer, if you will seriously listen to it; and the terms will lift you 
above the frowns of the world." 

"I am anxious, madam, to know it." 

"It is this," returned Madam Vandore, delighted with the con- 
quest which she supposed she had made. "If you renounce the 
fallacious cause of freedom, and do all in your power to put down 
the rebels, your immediate reward will be ten thousand pounds, 
and any office in the colonies within the king's gift." 

"It is folly to trifle any longer," returned General Reed, "I am 

NOT WORTH purchasing; BUT SUCH AS I AM, THE KiNG OF ENG- 
LAND IS NOT RICH ENOUGH TO BUY ME." 

Mrs. Vandore now discovered that she had encountered the 
wrong man — a man of Roman virtue, to whom gold had no charm. 



52 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

when placed in the scale against his patriotism. Without saying 
another word on the subject, they turned their footsteps towards 
the house, where they were met by the tory Summers, who was 
full of hope that she had been successful in her infamous proposal, 
but he discovered, to his secret mortification, that General Reed 
was not to be bought. 

Mirth and music were resounding through the buildings, and the 
gay dancers were realizing the poetry of motion, while the tories 
were secretly endeavoring to win over the friends of freedom. 
Summers was laying a deep scheme to undermine the virtue of 
some of his guests, and it was for this purpose that he gave a 
series of splendid parties, to which the French and American 
officers were invited. 

While joy and hilarity pervaded the brilliant assemblage of revo- 
lutionary belles and beaux; while the laugh of the dark eyed 
beauties, who have long sinced passed away, rung through the 
hall and the gay coquettes were trifling with their enamored atten- 
dants, there was one without who was slowly approaching the 
mirthful scene, but far other feelings than those of joy pervaded 
her heart. She gazed through the window into the room, where 
every face was clad in smiles — into the room, where she had spent 
some of the happiest days of her life. It was the unhappy Nora. 
As she gazed on the gay forms and happy faces, as they wheeled 
in the dance, her bosom heaved, her eyes filled with tears, and she 
sat down on a bench beneath the shadow of an oak, under which 
she had played with her sisters in childhood, and wept long and 
bitterly. The memory of happier days arose before her, and when 
she thought of her poor husband, who was suffering from want, as 
well as wounds, she could not restrain her grief sufficiently to enter. 

"A 'oman, massa^ in de yard, what want to speak to ye," said 
a coxcomb of a negro servant in livery, as he entered the hall. 

"Who is she?" enquired Mr. and Mrs. Summers. 

"Can't tell dat, massa, for she's a crying so dat de poor gal cant 
speak. She hab on an ole bonnet and linsey-woolsey frock, and 
hardly got no shoes on de feet." 

"Can it be Nora that's come here to pester us at such a time as 
this?" enquired Mrs. Summers, with a sour look. 

"Taint Miss Nora, don't tink, Massa, howsumdever I see." 

The negro, who possessed a better heart than his master or mis- 
tress, was going to enquire, when Mrs. Summers whispered: 

"Tell the good for nothing trollope, to clear out — she has no 
business here at such a time, be she who she may." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 53 

The unhappy Nora was waiting anxiously for an interview with 
her parents, when the negro ordered her away. 

"Oh God!" she exclaimed, with a heart-broken sigh, "can I not 
then see my parents, whom I have ever loved so dearly, and whose 
injunctions I have never transgressed but once!" 

"Dar, den," said the servant, visibly affected by her grief, "I gib 
ye three cents, go away now, de great folks am not to be sturbed." 

This was more than Nora could bear, and she sobbed so loudly 
that Mr. and Mrs. Summers went out, highly incensed at what 
they called her impudence. 

"What do you want here, girl.?" interrogated Mrs. Summers, 
"that you are yelling like a screech owl." 

"Oh! my dear mother, do you not know your poor Nora?" 

"We don't wish to know you," observed Mr. Summers; "but 
what brings you here at such an unseasonable time?" 

"Oh! my dear father, pardon me for the intrusion? Nothing 
but necessity — the keenest pangs of " 

"Oho!" exclaimed Mrs. Summers, with a frowning look, "you 
had better go to your rebel friends for assistance, as none but an 
upstart rebel captain could satisfy you for a husband. I said you'd 
be sneaking home when pinched with want, and now, madame 
trollope, you'd better be off, or Mingo shall take you off." 

Nora turned upon her mother her imploring eyes, filled with 
tears, but met no sympathy; and as she fell upon her knees before 
them, her father coldly addressed her — 

" Come, come, none of your play actress here ! You have come 
to the wrong place to beg. Had you not meanly stolen off with 
that ragamuffin captain, you need not have been a beggar." 

"But, dear parents, I have never transgressed but once " 

"And that was enough," said Mrs. Summers, with a haughty 
air. "You had better be moving, for we have nothing to give 
beggars, and we will not support rebels and their brats." 

"For mercy's sake, forgive an unhappy daughter, if you will not 
listen to her tale of woe," exclaimed the weeping Nora, as she 
endeavored to take the hand of her mother. 

"We have no time for either;" observed Mrs. Summers, "you 
should have thought of this before you eloped with your pretty 
jewel of a rebel captain. Not a cent of our's shall go to minister 
comfort to him, if he dies, and you need not expect it." 

"To cut the matter short," added Mr. Summers, "you must 
leave here immediately. I will not, have my respectable friends 
interrupted in their enjoyment by such characters as you are." 



54 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



As he said this, he took her by the arm to lead her away, when 
she uttered a soul-piercing shriek, which rung through the build- 
ing, and clung convulsively to his arm. 

"Take the woman away, Mingo," said Summers, as a number 
of the guests came running from the hall, to ascertain what was 
the matter. 

"Who is she? What is the matter with her?" enquired several, 
as Mingo was leading the weeping Nora away. 

"0! nothing but a beggar woman," carelessly observed Mrs. 
Summers, "who is in the habit of pestering us at such times as 
this." 

"Oh! forgive me, my father — my mother," exclaimed Nora. 

"Poor thing!" said Mr, Summers, noticing the expression of 
curiosity in the countenances of the guests at hearing her call him 
father; "she's somewhat deranged, and imagines that we are her 
parents." 

"Yes, poor creature," added Mrs. Summers, "I pity her; but 
in her crazy moments she is so troublesome that we have to drive 
her away, though my heart aches to do so." 

Mr. Summers caught the eye of his wife, as much as to tell her 
that she was as good at lying as he was himself. The evening 
passed away in uninterrupted hilarity afterwards; and it was nearly 
the hour when fair Aurora, the goddess of the morning, drives up 
the eastern hills her stamping steeds, when the gay guests sepa- 
rated. And these hard-hearted parents felt no pang of remorse 
for having so cruelly treated their own daughter, and for having 
descended to the turpitude of lying to cover their meanness. 



CHAPTER VI. 



" There was a heart of treachery, that beat 
Beneath that smiling face ; and there was guile 
In every word of his smooth tongue." — Old Play. 

^OOR Nora trudged her way back from the home of her 
unnatural parents, and arrived, almost exhausted, at 
^^ Valley Forge before the day dawned. She found her 
husband no better than she had left him, and indeed 
there was not much prospect of bis being any better, unless some 
proper diet could be obtained to nourish him. His little stock of 




WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 55 

money had all been exhausted, and Nora had sold, one by one, 
and piece by piece, all her jewelry, she had once idolized, and all 
her elegant dresses. She had retained for her use the meanest of 
her clothing. It was in the desperate hope of obtaining assistance, 
that she had gone to her father's house; but, alas! the reader is 
acquainted with the reception she met. Disconsolate and weep- 
ing, she sat by the pallet of her now emaciated husband; without 
a penny to procure even the most ordinary delicacy for a sick per- 
son. The fare meted out to the soldiers was scant, and of such a 
quality that was repulsive to a delicate palate. 

"Don't grieve any more about it, my gentle wife," said Captain 
Danvers, who idolized Nora. "Providence will take care of us, 
and the day will come, perhaps, when your parents will be glad 
to receive us." 

"I rely upon that Providence of which you speak," returned 
Nora, "and were it not for that firm reliance, I should sink under 
the distress of mind I endure." 

To procure a small pittance with which to purchase necessaries 
for her husband, Nora was under the necessity of washing for the 
officers, though she had been reared in delicacy, and never had 
known what toil was, save by the name. In the halls of gaiety 
arid grandeur she had moved amid the proudest of the land, who 
had considered it an honor to be favored with her smile; and 
now, when her hands bled at the wash tub, and she thought of the 
cruelty of her parents, she paused from her labor and melted into 
tears. She did not repine at the task of laboring for the comfort 
of her husband, but that her parents, possessing thousands, refused 
even to listen to her tale of want and woe. 

"Oh! how much," she would exclaim, when weary with toil, 
"should our children appreciate that liberty, to obtain which so 
much is endured, and so much blood is shed! Never, never 
should they forget the immense price at which, if obtained, it 
must be purchased." 

The night was dark and stormy. The lurid lightnings leaped 
athwart the gloomy concave of heaven and thunder rolled along 
and reverberated from hill to hill, and died away in the distance of 
the dark forests that frowned around. A black cloud, portentious 
* of rain, hung in the western heavens, and was rising rapidly to the 
zenith. Nora was seated beside Captain Danvers, reading to him 
a passage in the Scriptures, relating to the trials of life and the 
promise that the righteous shall never be forsaken, when she sud- 
denly lifted her eyes, and started at the presence of the strangest 



56 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

looking being she had ever seen. She had heard of the wizard 
that roamed the forest, and a feeling of awe pervaded her heart; for, 
like most people, she was not free from superstition. Her hus- 
band had fallen asleep, and there was a deep silence, save when 
the crashing thunder clap came, deafening the ear, as if a thou- 
sand oaks had been riven. 

"Be not afraid my child," said the withered looking being. 

"From whence come you, and how did you find entrance?" 
enquired Nora, looking anxiously in his face. 

"I have a charm, madam, by which I gain admittance every- 
where; and I come to place in your hands the means of supplying 
your husband's wants. I was at the house of your father when 
you appealed to him for assistance, though I was then in a very 
different character; and I heard all that passed between you. 
Here is a purse, which will supply your wants for a time. In the 
character of a fortune-teller, T have acquired the contents from the 
rich, and it will serve to relieve suffering virtue." 

He handed her a purse, and so fully did it fulfil the passage she 
had been reading in Holy Writ, that she could not refrain from 
shedding tears, and offering up thanks to the Author of all good, 
and the Giver of all that we enjoy. She turned to thank the im- 
mediate donor; but found, to her surprise, that he was gone. 
So mysterious was his appearance and disappearance, at such an 
hour, that she felt an indefinable fear, she knew not why, and it 
was some time ere she could compose herself. 

"Strange things are related of this strange being," said she to 
her husband, who had been awakened during the latter part of the 
interview. "It is said that he has a ring which by an incantation, 
renders him invisible, so that he can enter where he pleases; and 
that whatever he foretells, is fulfilled to the letter." 

"Yes," returned Captain Danvers, "he has prophesied that the 
struggle for independence, in which we are engaged, will triumph, 
and may God grant that his words may be verified." 

"God grant it!" repeated Nora, as she counted the pieces of 
silver which the wizard had given her, and then re-commenced 
her reading. 

The wizard approached the tent of Gen. Washington, and found 
him engaged in devotion. He was offering thanks to God for the • 
triumphs he had already achieved; and praying that the chains, 
imposed by England, might be eventually riven, and that success 
might crown the efforts of a suffering, bleeding country. The 
solemnity of the scene arrested him in his progress, and he stood 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 57 

listening to the rich melodious tones of the good soldier, who was 
pleading the cause of a nation baptised in blood and tears. 
Washington arose from his knees, and was informed that a person 
wished to see him on particular business. 

"Let him enter," said Washington, and the mysterious man 
stood before him. 

"Well, General, we have met again, as I told you we should." 

Washington surveyed him from head to foot, and for a time 
seemed puzzled; but at length took him by the hand. 

"Had you not used the expression you did, I should not have 
known you," returned Washington, motioning him to be seated. 

"I have come. General, upon momentous business — business 
that closely concerns your welfare." 

"And, pray, what is that?" 

"You are aware, sir, that Johnstone with his associates, sent 
from England with offers of what the Colonies demanded, being 
foiled in their attempt at negotiating a treaty, are employed in 
attempting to corrupt the people, and are offering bribes to any 
who should be treacherous enough to receive them." 

"lam," coolly answered Washington, "and they richly de- 
serve the halter." 

" Well, General, an infamous offer, of twenty thousand pounds 
and a patent of nobility, has been made to any one who will be 
base enough to betray you into the hands of the British." 

Washington started with surprise and smiled. 

"And has any one accepted the brilliant offer?" 

"Yes, sir! odious as it is in the eyes of the upright, it has been 
accepted and by one you would little suspect — by one who pre- 
tends to be the friend of freedom — .by one who would flatter you 
to your face, and who is already wealthy, and stands high in 
society." 

"And, pray, who may the honorable gentlemen be, who would 
reap so great a reward by the capture of my humble self?" en- 
quired Washington humorously. 

"You may rely upon the truth of the matter. General. The 
bargain has been struck, the plan arranged, and the villain is no 
other than your quondam friend, Thomas Summers." 

Washington started at the sound of the name, for he had but 
recently been at the house of Summers, and had been flattered in 
a fulsome manner for his success in the capture of Burgoyne, and 
the wisdom he had generally evinced. As before observed, 
Washington had long suspected the fidelity of Summers. 
8 



58 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Washington, elevating his eyes, 
"how can it be possible for a man to be so deceitful! How can 
he express the warmest friendship of the heart, at the same time 
that he is planning the ruin of his misnamed friend!" 

"Ah! General, the word gold can solve the mystery. Ambition 
unlawful ambition, has been, and will be, the bane of thousands." 
"But how do you know this?" enquired Washington. 
"I have it from his own mouth. I was introduced to him in 
Philadelphia by accident, as an Englishman; and he believes 
me to be the bitter enemy of those he stigmatizes by the 
name of rebels. I have had two interviews with him, the last in 
the presence of Johnstone, Carlisle and Eden, and heard the 
matter discussed. It is to put you on your guard, that you may 
keep your eye on Summers, that I came here at such an hour. 
He is treacherous, and will stab while he flatters you. He is in 
raptures with the prospect, and the emoluments he will reap by 
the consummation. Beware of him." 

"Is it his intention to take me dead, or alive?" 
"Alive, of course. The triumph would be half lost, if you 
were not taken alive. And, then, it is desired by hanging you 
to strike alarm to others; and thus crush, at one blow, the cause 
of freedom in America." 

"That can never be done," said Washington proudly. "The 
fire which has been kindled, will continue to burn, until the long 
oppressed people of this country shall be free. That man shall yet 
repent his Ireacheryr-r-ay, he shall repent it in sackcloth and ashes. 
What is the plan fixed upon for carrying the capture into effect?" 
"This is not fully arranged. General, in every particular; but as 
it is more and more developed, I will communicate it to you, 
Summers is the leader in the affair, and is to betray you under the 
mask of friendship." 

"I have observed," said Washington, "that he is particularly 
friendly of late, and anxious that I should visit him." 

"Ay, sir, he has his object in view. It is growing late, and I 
must leave you, General. Be assured, however, that I will sift the 
matter, and disappoint the villainous intention after all." 

With the thanks of Washington, the mysterious man left the 
camp, and took his way through the dark forest, his path illumi- 
nated by the occasional flashes of lightning, that shot from a 
retiring cloud. Washington remained some time reflecting on the 
desperate wickedness of the human heart, and the deceitfulness 
of man. 




AVRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 59 



CHAP '1' i: R VII. 

" O God 1 thy arm was here ; 
And not to us, but to thine arm alone, 
Ascribe we all." — Shakspeare. 

IHE adventure, about to be described, really occurred ; 
and shows to what desperate measures men will resort 
for the sake of gold, and the bubble of fame. Summers 
knew, that if he could capture Washington, the leader 
of the American army, that it would immortalize his name, and 
fill his purse; though the fame he would acquire, would bear 
uj)on it the curse of every patriotic heart. Johnstone had pro- 
n)ised him, not only wealth, in the event of his capturing the com- 
mander-in-chief, but nobility; for which, not only Summers, but 
his whole family sighed. It was ludicrous, as well as ridiculous, 
to hear Madam Summers and her two daughters, for Mary had 
now returned from school, talking of the style in which they 
would move, when Lord and Lady Summers should receive the 
patent of nobility, and rank with the aristocracy of England, 
wiiither they meant to go. 

The mysterious man, who liad become known to Summers as 
Mr. Mandeville, from England, had the advantage of knowing all 
that passed in the British army, as well as in the family of the 
tory Summers. So perfect a Proteus was he, or so skilled 
in disguising himself, that many persons declared it to be like 
magic; for in a few minutes he could so completely change his 
appearance, that no one would have recognized him as the same 
being. At one time he was seen as an old man, bending on his 
staff; at another as an old woman, decrepid with age; and at a 
third as the polished and dignified gentleman, in the name of 
Mandeville, or some other cognomen. He possessed too, a per- 
fect command over his voice, and the motions of his body; so 
much so, that those who were permitted to know anything of his 
actions, surmised that he had formerly been a play actor, a moun- 
tebank or juggler. Added to all this, he was a ventriloquist; often 
amusing himself by creating ludicrous scenes, and imitating voices 
at a distance. It was by these means that he had acquired the 
reputation of being a wizard, a soothsayer, augur, or fortune-teller; 
and many believed implicitly whatever he foretold. By means of 
his many disguises he gained admittance everywhere, and was of 
much service to the commander-in-chief, by communicating the 



60 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

designs of the British. Very few, however, were suffered to know 
that he assumed so many guises, or he would long before have 
paid for his temerity with his life. 

The family of Mr. Summers had been busily employed, during 
a week, making preparations for a grand display at a party, to be 
given to Washington and his officers, in honor of the capture of 
Burgoyne and his army. 

"Tell General Washington," said Mrs. Summers to the servant 
about to be despatched with the note of invitation, "that he must 
be certain to give us the honor of his company on Wednesday, as 
the party is given entirely to do him honor." 

The servant mounted the horse, and as he rode off, she added 
in a triumphant tone 

"To do ourselves honor I mean, for if he comes he will certainly 
be in our power; and if he become our captive, happy, happy 
day! what honors will await us!" 

While she was thus enjoying an imaginary triumph, Mr. Sum- 
mers rode up to the door and dismounted in haste. 

"Good, wife, good news!" he breathlessly exclaimed. 

"What is it! what is it!" she enquired. 

"What is it! Why General Washington is to be here upon a 
certainty, without fail," and he clapped his hands. 

"How do you know, husband?" 

"O, I met him, and he assured me he would be certainly with 
us on Wednesday, and do himself the honor to " 

"To do us everlasting honor," screamed the wife, finishing the 
sentence, and laughing with joy. "Good news indeed!" 

"I guess he'll catch a tartar this time," said Mr. Summers, as 
he playfully ran after his wife into the house. 

Scarcely had they entered, when Mary Summers came running 
in, frightened at a queer looking being in the yard. 

"0. it's the wizard, I presume," said Mr. Summers. "Come 
in, Mr. Fortune-Teller, and we'll have some fun. Here's some 
money for you, my good fellow; now tell us what will happen at 
our house this week." 

They all laughed, as the wizard drew forth his mysterious im- 
plements, and stood in the middle of the floor waving a wand, 
while he drew an imaginary circle on the carpet. 

"I am now in a charmed circle," he said, drawing out a scroll, 
on which were strange characters. 

"Well, what is to happen?" enquired Summers, winking at 
them. ''The horoscope is obscure to-day," he answered, "and I 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 61 

cannot read the stars distinctly; but, est in domus Jovum, I see a 
great and grand assembly of military men, among whom is George 
Washington." 

Mrs, Summers started with surprise, and the giggling ceased. 

"What more?" enquired Summers eagerly and seriously. 

"I see a party coming on horseback covered with dust, that 
look like British soldiers — they arrive and dismount " 

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Summers, "this is strange." 

"Silence!" exclaimed her husband, joy spreading over his fea- 
tures. "What next, Mr. W^izard." 

"George Washington, or some one else, is a prisoner, in the 
hands of a party I cannot distinguish — all else is in obscurity." 

"Enough! enough!" cried Summers, rubbing his hands. 

"Well, it's mighty strange indeed," said Mrs. Summers, "that 
he can tell what is to happen! Who would have believed it!" 

Summers, secretly rejoiced, handed some silver to the wizard, 
and he departed, well pleased at having obtained the means of re- 
lieving the wants of Nora and her husband. 

Astonishment succeeded ridicule in the minds of the tory 
family. They were left to wonder at what they had heard, for 
they never suspected that they had been speaking to Mr. Mande- 
ville.. in the character of a wizard; and little did they know of the 
sequel to what he had foretold. Stars and garters, and the gew- 
gaws of nobility, were all that now had charms for them; and for 
these they were resolved to sell the life of Washington, and the 
freedom of the country. Johnstone had nearly turned their heads 
with brilliant promises. They dreamed of nothing but the capture 
of Washington, and nobility. 

At length the day, the long wished for day of the grand party 
arrived, the events of which were to render them illustrious and 
happy, and all was activity and bustle. In addressing one another, 
it was "my lord," and "my lady," until they rendered themselves 
ridiculous, even in the eyes of the servants. The guests began to 
arrive, one after another, and an eager eye was kept to catch a 
glimpse of the countenance of Gen. Washington; but still he did 
not arrive. Madam and Mr. Summers were in hysterics about it, 
and began to fear that he had, by some means, received an inkling 
of what was going on, when, to their joy, Mr. Mandeville made 
his appearance, and informed them that the object of their pecu- 
liar solicitude would soon be there. 

Washington rode up in a ^q\n minutes, and Summers was very 
particular in his attentions to him ; so much so, that he 



02 wmriNi.H ok 'rrri': iviir,r'(»iii) maih>. 

HO()iiM'<l lo iloiil)! llial III! wiiH liny tiling cLsi; lliaii wlial lie appeared, 
a iViiiiHl. Ijar;<<! was tlii! party llicrt! aMNriiiMcd, hiil SiiiriiiiciK 
paid liltli! allriitioii lo any but iIh; ooiniiian(l<-r-in-(-liirr, on hIiono 
arm iir lMin;r, and vvlioin lu; intr()diicc<l to (•.h(\i and evrry stran- 
ger, lie llatlrrcd liiin inc.rssanily, niid contrrninlalrd liini on tlir 
takinjf of I'lirjroyiM!, and lli<; pro.spcct of iIk; lrniiii|ili of liberty. 
Wasliini^'lon listened to liim (-oiiiplact^nlly, as tlioii^li i;^iiorant ol 
bis desi^^n; and seemed pleased at all be naw and beard. Wbile 
Home were Ntrolliii;j^ in llie beaiililiil <j[arden, now in liill bloom; 
and otbers were min^^linjf in tbe imirry <lan(-e, SiimiiKirH and Wasb- 
in;,fton w«!re busily conviir.Mini^f on tbe aH'air.s oI'iIm' roiinlry, and of 
tlio exploits in wbicll ibn lalKir bad been iMiffajjed. Mandevilb: 
kept liiM eye on tbe two; follovvi'ij tlu^m wber(!V(;r tbey \vi:ni, and 
occaHiotially joined in tbeir convitrHalion ; tboii^b be was now iin- 
Kiiown to WaHliiiij^fton. Diirin;' tbe absence of SiimimMs, liow- 
ever, be made liimNell known, vvliieb absence lasted but a few 
minutes. Mvery lew minutes, diiriii<r tin; iirst boiir of tli(! alter- 
noon, Summers vv:ilk<-d to tbe window; or, if ncMir it, turned bis 
(>ye anxiously towards u skirt of woodland in a sonlli-vvestern 
dir(;ction; but Wasbinj^ton afVecled not to obs(>rve bim. 

" Well, deneral," said Summers, willi a di;^'nilied manner, " wlial 
is your opinion of tbe war?" 

"In tbe Iirst place," said VVasbiniL^ton, "it is .1 pisl one on our 
side; ami in tbe second, we sball trinmpli." 

".Inst my opinion pr(u'.is(rly. It would be a pity to Tail now, 
alter beiiijif so cb^eply pliinired into it." 

At ibis moment Mrs. Snmnieis motioned ber luisbaiid to look 
from ibe window, wliicb li<^ did, and saw soim^ soldiers in red 
coats, on borseback, just emeri^nnir IVom tbe skirl oC woodland 
Mpoken of. 

" l^it, upon secdiid tbon^rbt," said Mr. Siimni(>rs, wilb soino 
trepidation, " I am incliiKMi to lliink yon will not succeed." 

"Why do yon tbink so, sir?" einpiired Wasbin^rton, jL;bincin<j[ 
bis eye in tbe direclioii ol' tbe approacliin;r scddiers, but Ix'lraym^ 
no emolion 

" Jlocniise yon liave many obstacles to overcome, wbicb I fear 
will be insnrmonnlable, " returned Summers, lookiiij^f anxiously 
from tbe window at ihr soldiers, wlio were drawinij; near. 

"Never fear," returned Wasbin^'lon, coolly. 

" Yon bave cause to fear," said Summers, as the red coals rodo 
ni> into the yard. 

"Wby so?" demanded Wasliin^toil. 



WUTTINCS OK TIIK lMir,K()in> BARD. 03 

"Because you are already in llu; hands ofllio IJritisli." 
" I hope not, sir." 

"You are uiy prisoner, (Jeneral, in the nani«> <>!' ilie kinjr," ex- 
chiinied Suinniers, with ortMl pride and |)UiUsnr(!; slappinjr hiiu at 
the same time on tlie shouUler. 
" I presume noi, sir." 

"Yon will fiiul it so, f](Mieral, in a lew minnles," said Sninnu-rs, 
lan^hintr with joy, in which Mrs. Sninmers joined. 

"You may think so," returned VVashin^Mon, "l)nt I know yon 
are my prisoner, in the name of outraged America. Captain Mor- 
ton," said he to an oflicer that came in at the instant, "seize him 
and hear him instantly to the camp." 

Summers could not believe that he was hiniseH" a ca|)tive, until 
the American soldiers, tlisirnised in red coals, advanced and pin- 
ioned him; so certain was hr. that the parly of soldiers W(>re Bri- 
tish, he havinir made; arraniremenls that they shoidd arrive at tince 
o'clock, and Washinirton having directed his own soldiers to be 
there lialfan hour belbre the time. Thus was he taken in his own 
trap, and borne off in triumph before the British. 

At the moment h(>r husband was seized, and discovered hismis- 
Ui\n\, Mrs. Sinnmers uttered one piercing scream, and fell swoon- 
ing to the floor; nor less wretched were her daughters. The 
dancing instantly ceased, and mirth that reigned snpr(>me a nt(»- 
ment befor<^, was changed into consternalion and wonder. 

Washington and the prisoner were gone, ere tlu; IJritish came, 
full of hope of taking him prisoner; but great was their disappoint- 
ment and chagrin, when they found that Summers, the tory and 
traitor, had been taken. They found the hous(> filled with lamen- 
tation and woe, where they expected to hear the shouts of rejoicing 
and triumph. 

This incident, so full of interest, the reader may have m(!l with 
elsewhere, as it really occurred during the revolution; though it 
has never, I believe, found a jilace on the pages of history. 

As the soldiers were conveying the prisoner to Valley JVnge, lie 
made several ineffectual attempts to escape, and to bribe them to 
set him at liberty; but they heard his oilers with contempt and 
ridicule. Finding that all his enchiavors failed, he maintained a 
sullen silence during the rest of the journ«;y, and submitted to tli«; 
fate he coidd not avoid. 



64 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



C H A I* T E R VIII. 

" The best laid schemes o' mice and men, 
Gang att agley, 
And lea'e us nought hut grief and pain, 

For promised joy." — Burns. 



^ 



ETTER after letter did Washington receive from Mrs. 
■^i Summers, couched in the most pathetic language, im- 
'Sfess^ ploring him, in the name of a wretched wife and daugli- 
ters, to set his prisoner at liberty; and thus show to the 
world that magnanimity for which he was distinguished. Wash- 
ington felt the force of these pathetic appeals, but firmly and po- 
litely denied the request. But there was another pleader for the 
liberation of the captive; for whom he felt a greater sympathy. 
This was Nora, who, notwithstanding the cruel treatment she 
received at the hands of her parents, could not close her ears to 
their cries. She added her supplication to iheir's, but Washing- 
ton was still unmoved by their entreaties, or at least appeared to 
be so. Summers meanly humbled himself so far as to beg his life 
of him whom he was strenuously endeavoring to devote to the 
scaffold, as well as to defeat the struggle for liberty. Most humbly 
he begged for life, while his wife and daughters left nothing untried, 
which they thought would be likely to influence the soul of Wash- 
ington. They evidently had not known the man they had to deal 
with, and they now felt it keenly. 

Summers was tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to die, 
without a dissenting voice. Every effort was now redoubled to 
save him, not only by his family, but by tories and the British. On 
a lovely morning in June, when the woodland was vocal with the 
songs of birds, and all nature was bursting into bloom and beauty, 
Washington was sitting in his tent, conversing with General La 
Fayette, when a messenger entered with a letter. He broke the 
sable seal, and read it aloud; while a tear stole down his cheek. 
It was from Mrs. Summers, who was really a lady of education, 
having been educated in England; and in this letter she displayed 
all her powers of composition. 

" General. — On my knees humbly before you, and in the name of a heart- 
broken wife and weeping daughters, distracted at their father's fate; 1 implore 
you to spare — Oh ! yes, to spare a poor unhappy husband and father, who, 
through the influence of others, in a moment of excitement, forgot his duty 
and committed an error, which he, in his calmer hours of reason, I am sure, 
would have disdained. Oh ! General, pardon him this first act of wrong he has 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 65 

ever committed agtiinst his country and your illustrious person; and save, oh! 
save, from irretrievable ruin and despair, the wretched wife of his bosom, and 
the children of his love, one of whom is connected in marriage with a brave 

officer under your command. Save my husband Oil! General, spare his 

life, and the world, which now so highly esteems your virtues, will venerate 
your chai-acter for magnanimity and mercy. While the tears of anguish and 
despair are gushing from eyes that, until now, never knew sorrow but by name; 
we humbly implore you, in the name of mercy; in the name of humanity; and 
in the name of that glory, which you have never yet tarnished by stopping 
your ears to the cries of helpless woman; Oh! General, in the name of that 
God you profess to adore, we beg you; we conjure you; we implore you, to 
spare him who is doomed to die on the scaffold. Think, oh ! think, how much 
misery the exercise of your mercy will spare to hearts already bleeding and 
breaking, with anguish unutterable. Spare him, and you will thus, like the 
good Samai-itan, bind up the bleeding bosom of a miserable mother — you will, 
by this heavenly act of mercy, save his distracted daughters from the gulf of 
despair and ruin — you will, by thus imitating Him who came to forgive, and 
who hung the rainbow of redemption round a dark and dying world, crown 
yourself with a glory more imperishable than that of having achieved a thou- 
sand victories in the field, or of having subverted a thousand thrones." 

This letter was signed "Mary Summers;" and Washington, 
after having read it to La Fayette, sat some time with his eyes 
fixed on vacancy, wondering that a mind so refined could yet be 
so depraved, as to have given her sanction to the act for which her 
unhappy husband was doomed to die, and which had called forth 
the exercise of her talents. He now turned to his writing-desk, 
and wrote her an answer in equally pathetic language, the conclu- 
sion of which ran thus: 

"Madam: — I sincerely deplore the necessity of signing the death-warrant of 
your husband, whose weakness in being tempted by the bribes of the British I 
pity, and the sorrow, of which his fate will be the cause, I deplore. I would 
not cruelly cause one tear of anguish to flow from the eyes of his unhappy wife 
and children, or one sigh of sorrow to break from their bleeding bosoms; but I 
cannot disregard the interests of my country, and the safety of her sons, who 
have so long suffered and bled beneath the inflictions of her enemies. I regret 
it — I pity the pang it will give — but to-morrow, at sunrise, he dies." 

This letter was signed "Washington," and despatched to the 
miserable mother and her daughters; and with it went the dark- 
winged angel of despair. The halls that so lately rung with mirth 
and music, now echoed the soul-piercing shiek of anguish, and 
the long drawn groan of agony. Those who were so recently 
priding themselves on their aristocratic greatness, and the prospect 
of wealth and nobility, were now sunk in degradation and misery; 
while the husband and father was trembling at the sight of the 
9 



66 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

scaffold which was being erected, and on which he was soon to 
perish. 

The morning on which he was doomed to die at length dawned, 
and a lovelier morning never broke upon the cradle of innocence 
in Eden. The whole army was put in motion, and marched to the 
place of execution; where it was formed into a great circle around 
the scaffold. The musicians were then attached to the prove- 
guard, and marched to the provo-guard-house, from which the 
prisoner was brought out, and placed in the centre of the guard. 
With slow and solemn steps they marched to the scaffold, the 
musicians playing the dead march, to which the soldiers trod per- 
fect time. When the prisoner was brought up, the chaplain ad- 
dressed the army in a very appropriate and solemn manner; after 
which, a prayer was offered up to God, who, in his infinite good- 
ness and mercy, had defeated the designs of the enemies of free- 
dom, and saved the life of the commander-in-chief. When allu- 
sion was made to this, Washington wept. 

At this moment the attention of all was directed to three female 
figures, habited in deep mourning, who were approaching; and 
whose cries resounded through the depth of the forest. The three 
advanced near Washington, and knelt at his feet, in an imploring 
attitude. 

"Spare, oh! spare my husband," cried Mrs. Summers, in tones 
that spoke the deepest agony. 

"Spare the life of my poor father!" exclaimed the youngest 
daughter, and fell swooning on the ground. 

At this moment, Nora, whose face was bathed in tears, came 
rushing to the spot, and knelt beside her mother, adding her sup- 
plications to that of her mother, that the life of her father might be 
spared. At the sight and sound of Nora's grief, many of the sol- 
diers shed tears, and felt sincere sympathy; for they had long 
noticed her devotion to her helpless husband, and formed a high 
appreciation of her character. Washington, too, had a high respect 
for her, and therefore felt' inclined to listen to her prayer 
that her father might be saved. He was visibly affected at her 
o-rief, and the natural eloquence that flowed in glowing language 
from her lips. After listening to her pleading some time, he gave 
orders, with tears in his eyes, that the prisoner should be conveyed 
back to the guard-house, and the execution suspended, at least for 
the present. This clemency being viewed in the light of a par- 
don, the grief of the mother and her daughters was changed to 
rejoicing, and none seemed more rejoiced than poor Nora, though 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 67 

she was still unnoticed by her mother and sisters, notwithstanding 
the fact that they felt conscious she had saved the life of the 
doomed one. Such is the uncompromising character of the human 
heart, when it cherishes the bitterness of malice and revenge; and 
there is no hatred so keen and cruel, as that which is excited in 
kindred souls. 

The mother and her two daughters left Valley Forge with far 
different feelings from those with which they arrived, and impressed 
with a high sense of the Christian character of Washington. At 
the suggestion of the mysterious man, Washington pardoned 
Summers, on condition that he should leave the country and wo 
into exile; leaving to his own choice the country to which he 
would go. Summers gladly accepted the proffered terms, to save 
his life; and soon after sold his property, and made preparations 
to sail for England, attended by his wife and youngest daughter; 
Charlotte having resolved to remain with her husband, Charles 
Moreland, now an officer in the British army. 

To Nora, the thought of eternal separation from her parents was 
severe; for she lived in hope that she would succeed in reconcil- 
ing them to her marriage with Captain Danvers, notwithstanding 
their bitter enmity to him. Her lot, however, was cast in 
troublous times, and she endeavored to bow submissively to the 
decrees of heaven, which she knew it was useless to resist, and 
sinful to repine at. Still there were moments after they had de- 
parted, when she could not refrain from tears, at the melancholy 
thought that she would never behold them again on this side of 
the grave. 



CHAPTER IX. 

• The tide of war rolls on, and the red arm 
Of carnage recks with gore, in battle shed, 
By man opposed to man." — Anon. 




N the 18th of June, 1778, the British army evacuated 
Philadelphia, and took up their line of March, through 
New Jersey, towards the city of New York. 

Washington immediately after put the American 
army in motion and left Valley Forge. He sent out a de- 
tachment to collect the Jersey militia, that he might be enabled to 



68 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

harass the rear of the retiring British; for he was of the opinion 
that the wisest course to pursue was to bring them to a general 
engagement; though in this opinion he was opposed by the 
judgment of a majority of his officers. He was, however, not to 
be moved in his determination, based upon cool and deliberate 
calculation; and, accordingly, a battle was the result on the 28th 
of June, at Monmouth, in which the republican army had the ad- 
vantage. The victory was claimed by both armies, but the Amer- 
icans remained masters of the field, having far less killed and 
wounded than the British. 

Gen. Lee was associated with Gen. La Fayette in the command 
of the van; and here it was that Lee committed the act for which 
he was censured, and suspended one year from his command. 
Thinking that the ground in his rear was more favorable than that 
on which he had been standing, he in haste was making a retro- 
grade motion, when he was met by Washington ; who, astonished 
at his abandoning a ground which he had commanded him to take, 
thus giving the British the idea that he was retreating, asked him 
abruptly what he meant, and gave orders for forming the battalion. 
In consequence, however, of the brave conduct of Lee that day, 
after this occurence, Washington would have taken no farther 
notice of it, had not Lee thought proper to write disrespectful 
letters to him on the result of the battle. 

An Indian fought desperately during the battle, and was seen 
flying wherever the contest was hottest. Every eye was upon 
him, though no one knew him, or from whence he came. At 
one time, he was seen engaged, hand to hand, with a British 
officer; and at another, pouring a deadly fire upon the British 
ranks. Many a Briton that day bit the dust, beneath his dextrous 
and powerful arm. Wounded and bleeding, he rushed on like an 
enraged tiger. As night threw her mantle over the bloody scene, 
he was observed in deadly strife with a British officer, whom he 
seemed to know, and on whom he appeared to wreak his ven- 
geance. Both were active and powerful, and when night ended 
the battle between the armies, no one knew which had become 
the conqueror, or what became of the Indian; for he was not 
found among the dead. 

In every battle, afterward, during the Revolution, this Indian 
was seen in the thickest of the fight, and always appeared to be 
in search of some particular combatant. He performed prodigies 
of valor, and Washington wished to discover who he was, that he 
might be rewarded: but after the battle was over, he was always 



"WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 69 

missing — no one knew from whence he came, or whither he went; 
though some surmised that he was the identical wizard of Valley 
Forge, or the mysterious man. 

After the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, this Indian disappeared, 
and all attempts to discover him proved futile. His gallant bear- 
ing, and wonderful achievements had reached the ears of Congress; 
and he would have been honored but could not be discovered. 

The first part of the tale of the Mysterious Man here terminates, and the 
second jjart will be a Sequel to the first, disclosing who he was; the cause of 
the course of life he had led, and the revenge he sought and consummated; 
which will disclose to the reader some thrilling and touching scenes. The 
manuscript, containing the history of his life, love, and revenge, was found 
some time after the war had closed and peace visited again a smiling country, 
in the cave, occupied by him at Valley Forge. It was placed in the crevice of 
the rock and forgotten, or suffered to remain by design, when he left that 
place. 

In the succeeding history of the Mysterious Man, the reader will be led to 
contemplate the effects of some of the most powerful passions of the human 
mind. The Sequel will be given in the manner of an autobiography, as it was 
written by the identical wizard of Valley Forge; in which will be found a 
history of the future fate of the different characters I have introduced. The 
reader will find the Sequel the more interesting part of the tale. 




CHAPTER X. 

"A weary wand'rer in the wild." — Or,D Play, 

FEW years after the dark storm of war had rolled 
away, and the independence had been obtained, for 
which the brave men of the revolution had fought, bled, 
and immolated their lives on the sacred altar of their 
country; an old soldier might have been seen, bending upon his 
staff, up one of the hills that rise in majestic grandeur from Valley 
Forge. He was paying a visit to the spot where the army had 
encamped, in order to pick up any relics of that trying period, and 
of that army of heroes that, with stoic fortitude, had endured so 
much hardship and suffering, that they might bequeath to their 
posterity, sealed with their blood, the glorious privileges which we 
now enjoy. Though he lived not many miles from Valley Forge, 
he knew nothing of the cave in which the Wizard performed his 
incantations, until chance led his footsteps to the very entrance, 



TO WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

now overgrown with weeds and shrubbery, briars and bushes; nor 
might he now have noticed it, had not a hare leaped out from its 
enclosure. Turning aside the bushes, he looked in and discovered 
that the passage led to an expanded room, like that of a house; 
but he halted, lest some wild beast might have made it his lair, and 
his curiosity should cost him his life. 

But having, in the days gone by, been inured to hardship and 
danger, when the leaden messengers flew by him on the field of 
battle; he prepared to enter. With cautious steps he trod the 
rocky pavement of the passage, and soon found himself in a capa- 
cious hall. It was the place where the mysterious man had spent 
many a gloomy night, when the artillery of heaven rolled through 
the dark forest, which every minute was illumined with the lurid 
glare of the lightning as it leaped along the concave, like a fiery 
serpent, and flashed into the mouth of his cave, eclipsing the lamp 
which dimly shone upon the paper on which he was writing. 

The soldier soon discovered that it had been the habitation of 
some human being, as the ashes still remained in the fire-place of 
the chimney formed by nature. His curiosity was now excited, 
and led him to examine minutely every recess, crack and crevice; 
but, for a time, he discovered nothing but some fragments, and 
crusts of mouldy bread, and pieces of paper, stuffed away in the 
dry crevices of the rock. 

At length, when nearly weary of his pursuit, his eye detected, 
in a concealed nook of one of the most secluded recesses of the 
cave, the end of a scroll of paper, which he eagerly drew forth and 
unrolled, though in some degree injured by moisture and the tooth 
of time. He sat down on the identical projection of rock, where 
the mysterious man had so often sat, indulging in reminiscences 
of his past life; in forming plans for the defeat of the British; and 
in writing the history which the soldier held in his hand. 

In glancing over the pages, he perceived that it was indeed a 
history of that strange individual, of whose exploits and hair- 
breadth escapes he had heard so much during the revolution; and 
he sat some time, wondering what had become of him. 

We shall here transcribe the contents of the scroll, found by the 
soldier in the cave at Valley Forge. We shall 

" Nothing extenuate, 
Nor auffht set down in malice." 



TMl §E@1IJE1L 



OR THE 



llffektkn of t|f pigsteOTS JjEit. 



CHAPTER XI. 

" Homo hoinini Lupus." 

Man is a wolf to man.— Erasmus. 

AM an Englishman by birth, but through strong 
prejudices and unparalleled injuries, I have been 
made an American at heart. I was born in 
London, and educated at Edinburg. I was the 

second son of the Earl of , and, of course, 

by the unjust law of primogeniture, I was not 
the heir of my father's estates and titles. It was 
the intention of my parents to educate me for 
the church, and I was accordingly entered at 
the University of Edinburg, under the direction 
of some relatives of my mother. 

At the University, it was my fatal fortune to 
be associated with two youths, who were bro- 
thers, sons of Lord Manley, and who possessed 
talents of a superior order. But they were, also, 
endowed with passions the most vile and vicious. 
Being-twins, they were so much alike, that the one was often mis- 
taken for the other; and, indeed, few could distinguish them but 
by a certain mark on the brow of Roland. His brother, Oliver, 
was, like him, in the indulgence of every ignoble passion, and 
their dissipation, while at the University, became proverbial. 

We were, unfortunately, class-mates at the University, and 
became rivals; which rivalry, in the classics, led to hatred, as is 
often the case, especially where one may excel. Being more stu- 




72 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

dious than they were, the honors I received, gradually engendered 
in their hearts a bitter animosity against me; though they dared 
not openly exhibit it, but endeavored to injure me by detraction, 
in every secret and underhand manner in their power. 

Time rolled on, and their hatred of me increased, in proportion 
to the degree in which, by superior application and industry, I 
excelled them in the progress of education ; and yet, with that 
deceit which seems to be inherent in the human heart, they were 
polite, and pretended to be fond of my friendship; though their 
object was, by doing so, to have it more effectually in their power 
to injure me. 

In the neighborhood of Edinburg resided a widow and her two 
daughters; and two fairer or more lovely creatures, the sun never 
shone upon. This family was a decayed remnant of one of the 
most noble and powerful clans, that ever sounded the pibroch on 
the highlands of "Auld Scotia." 

Rosalie and Elvira Mac Donald had been left with their mother, 
with enough of this world's wealth to live comfortably, with econ- 
omy, and no more. The beauty of the daughters, who resembled 
each other almost as much as the two brothers I have mentioned, 
became the theme of all the gay, dashing young fellows of the 
college; and, indeed, no eye could have gazed upon their wax-like 
features, without feelings of admiration. It is needless to describe 
them now, further than to say, that they were beautiful, beyond 
that beauty which commonly falls to woman ; and they were no 
less happy, amiable and virtuous. 

"George St. Leger," said Roland, as he passed with his brother 
on the way to the cottage of Mrs. Mac Donald, "you are a favorite 
with Rosalie; but you must look out, or I'll rout you, horse, foot, 
and dragoons." 

I paid no attention to his slang, but felt a sensation of jealousy 
creep into my heart; for in spite of opposition, I felt that I was 
attracted towards the cottage with a power that I could not resist. 
I felt that Rosalie possessed charms, aside from her personal beauty, 
that I fancied no other lady possessed; and, then, I was at that 
age, (nineteen years,) when love unlocks our hearts, in spite of 
resistance, which, however, is seldom made, save when it is too 
late. 

It will forever remain a subject for debate, whether love and jeal- 
ousy are compatible. Some contend that jealousy is mean, and 
that it is by no means the concomitant or follower of love; but it 
is my opinion, that jealousy is the offspring of love, as a shadow 



•WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 73 

is of light; and that the more devoutly we love, the stronger will 
be our jealousy. It is evident that we are never jealous of tha t 
object for which we have but little regard; and, consequently, the 
very existence of jealousy, proves how much we prize the object 
of our regard or love. 

But to proceed. Rosalie was in her sixteenth year; her sister 
being a year older. They were both extremely lively and commu- 
nicative; and there is nothing on this side of the grave so lovely, 
so fascinating, so winning, as a beautiful and communicative wo- 
man. Rosalie won my heart ere I was aware of the matter, and I 
found myself sighing in secret, abstracted, and fond of solitude, 
without knowing what ailed me; until I discovered that I could 
not be happy away from the fair idol of my heart. I discovered, 
too, that I could not study — indeed, I could do nothing but think 
of the charms of the beautiful Rosalie. Oh! happy, happy days 
of courtship, now gone forever! When I turn mine eye upon the 
past, and survey the miseries I have endured, my heart bleeds with 
sorrow — ^ #*#**# 

Here the manuscript was obliterated, and bore the marks of stains, as if 
overpowered by feehngs, a gush of tears had been poured forth upon the paper. 

My visits to the cottage of Mrs. Mac Donald became more and 
more frequent, and I often found my rivals there; they used 
every means to supplant me. Roland fixed his serpent eye on the 
charms of Rosalie, and through that bitter hatred which he secretly 
cherished for me, used every scheme, and all the powers of lan- 
guage, to prejudice her mind against me; but in vain, for he who 
seeks to rend asunder the silken chain of love, which has been 
riveted around the heart of woman, can never do so, by persecut- 
ing the object of her affection. The more the idol of the heart's 
idolatry is persecuted, the more closely does she cling to him ; 
for she learns to pity him who is persecuted, and pity, which is 
akin to love, fans the fire into a fiercer flame. 

Two years passed away, and I resolved to marry Rosalie, in 
spite of the opposition of all my friends, my parents, and my rival. 
Oliver, the brother of Roland, who was famed for his manly beauty, 
had wooed and won the heart of the fair Elvira; but it was with 
that love which the tiger feels for the lamb ; it was that affeciion 
which the serpent feels, when his fascinating eye tempts the bird 
within reach of his fatal fangs. 

I married Rosalie secretly, for my family, particularly my parents, 
were violently opposed, and had threatened to renounce me for- 
10 



74 "WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

ever, if I thwarted their wishes. But shortly after this event, the 
fatal truth was made manifest, that Oliver had proved a villain ; 
and that the beautiful, the amiable, and innocent Elvira, was the 
victim of deception, and that she was blasted forever. 

Never shall I forget the hour that followed the disclosure of this 
heart-rending event. But notwithstanding the timid and gentle 
nature of Ehira, the spirit of the Mac Donalds animated her heart; 
she shed not a tear, save when her distracted mother fell and ex- 
pired in the arms of Rosalie, the moment she learned that her 
daughter had become the victim of a villain. 

Terrible, indeed, is the revenge of woman when deeply wronged ; 
and thus it was with Elvira. She wept not, for her soul was bent 
on wreaking vengeance on the villainy of him, who had basely 
betrayed her. She sent for him, and he came with a smile on his 
countenance; for he knew not yet, that his cruelty had killed her 
mother. 

"Behold, base man," she cried, ^'the ruin that the wrong you 
have done me has caused. Behold the corpse of my sainted 
mother, doomed to death by the deception you have practised. I 
give you three days to fulfil your solemn vow to me; and if on the 
fourth day you have delayed to do me justice, mark me — the knell 
of my revenge shall break upon your ear, like a clap of thunder in 
a clear sky." 

The young man uttered not a word, but fled from a scene that 
he had little expected to witness. The fourth day came, and Oli- 
ver had paid no attention to the warning she had given. He, with 
his wild and reckless brother, were dissipating time as gaily as if 
nothing had happened, little knowing the determined spirit with 
whom they had to deal. 

It was on a beautiful evening in spring, when the hills of Scot- 
land were carpeted with green, and the fields redolent with flow- 
ers, that with Rosalie and Elvira, I had been to pay a visit to a 
poor cottager. We were sauntering along the road, when, to the 
surprise of Rosalie and myself, though not to that of Elvira, for 
she expected it; Roland and his brother came dashing down the 
road, in a splendid barouche, with two horses. What followed 
was the work of a moment. 

Elvira sprang into the road, which caused them to draw up, 
before they discovered who she was; and, the next instant, she 
drew a pistol, which she had concealed, and fired. The wretched 
young man, who was the object of her vengeance, leaped head 
foremost from the carriage, and fell on the road at her feet. 



■WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 75 

"You have revenged your wrongs — I am a dead man!" he ex- 
claimed, as he turned his dying eyes upon her, and expired. 

Alarmed at what had taken place, I hurried her away; and, ere 
one hour had elapsed, we were on the road towards Liverpool, 
post-haste, where a relative of my wife had recently died, and be- 
queathed to Rosalie the sum of three thousand pounds sterling. 

On our arrival at Liverpool, I hastened to obtain the money, and 
immediately took a passage for America; and never was there a 
happier man than I was, when the white cliffs of England were 
receding from my view; for I felt that I never could be happy 
with my wife in the presence of Roland, whose attempts to defeat 
and injure me, had been made known to me by my wife. On the 
wide waste of waters I felt safe and happy ; for we were going to 
a fair land, with three thousand pounds, which would lift us above 
the frowns of the world, and render us comfortable in our new 
home. Already we began to have indications that the home we 
were seeking was not far off, and we all rejoiced in the prospect 
before us. 

But, alas! who can tell what a day may bring forth? We had 
been at sea four weeks; had had a succession of delightful 
weather; and, when almost in sight of the happy shores of Ame- 
rica, a tremendous storm arose at night, and in the gloom of the 
tempest, our vessel came in contact with another, and almost im- 
mediately sunk. 

"To the boats, to the boats!" cried the captain through his 
trumpet, which was scarcely heard above the raging of the storm, 
and the awful roaring of the sea. 

I started to run below in search of my money ; but, alas ! it was too 
late — the vessel was sinking. Scarcely had I thrown my wife and 
Elvira in the boat, ere the vessel sunk. One wild scream that still 
rings in my ears, was heard; and I found myself buffeting with 
the waves, surrounded by a number of drowning victims. Blessed 
with "lusty sinews," I swam to the boat, and was saved. Three 
days without food or water, we wandered on the wide waste of 
waves; but on the fourth a sail appeared to view, which proved to 
be a vessel bound to New York. 

We were all three saved; but oh! who can fancy our feelings, 
at the thought that nearly all we possessed, was buried in the deep. 
But I consoled myself that none of us had perished. 

In a short time, we arrived at New York, and prepared to push 
into the wilderness; for I now saw nothing before me but toil, 
though I might yet be happy. I made known my misfortune to 



76 -WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

the Governor of New York, who was a distant relative of my 
family; he directed me to a spot where I might settle, though he 
refused to loan me a penny. On foot we trudged into the then 
wilds of Pennsylvania, where we found the Eden of our hopes; 
and where I reared a cottage, to which Rosalie and Elvira added 
a beautiful garden for vegetables and flowers. 

Hard, indeed, for a while, was the life we led ; but nature will 
accommodate herself to any circumstances, and as year after year 
rolled by, fortune favored us, and plenty crowned our efforts. 
Four lovely children blessed us; two boys and two girls, beautiful 
as their mother had been, ere labor and the sun had soiled her 
charms. Though Rosalie often wept at the recollection of her 
mother, and her far off home in Scotland, she had gradually be- 
come reconciled, and even happy — yes, happy in the possession 
of the smiling children around her. 

Time rendered us able to rear a beautiful cottage, and to culti- 
vate around it a perfect paradise. The Indians, whose friendship 
we had studiously cultivated, often came to see, and to admire the 
happy habitation we had made in the wilderness. 

When I had reached my thirty-fifth year, six prattling children 
were around us, and my eldest were able to assist in the field, and 
the affairs of the house; and never, perhaps, was there a happier 
family. Not a care came to disturb the tranquillity of our home ; 
and, by economy, I had laid up a sufficiency of money to give our 
first daughter, married, a handsome portion. I had collected a 
library from the neighboring village, and our leisure hours were 
spent in reading. All the unhappy past was now forgotten, for 
we lived a new life in the lives of our children. 



CHAPTER XII. 

" U^hen that grim foe of life below 

Comes in between to make us part; 
The iron hand that breaks our band, 

It breaks my bliss— it breaks my heart."— Burns. 

)T was at this period that the first muttering of that terrific 
storm, which afterwards burst on devoted America with 
such tremendous fury, was heard. Alas! little did I 
know of the horrors that were in store for me ! I took 
no part in the quarrel between the colonies and the mother coun- 
try; but listened in silence to the excited language of the people, 




■WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 77 

with whom business threw me in contact. The Stamp Act had 
roused the colonies to a sense of their condition, and of the ty- 
ranny of England; and the flame of discord was flashing in every 
direction. 

At length the dreadful storm burst, and all eyes were turned 
towards Lexington, where the first blood had been shed. Still, 
while all ranks rushed to war, I remained quiet at home, resolved 
neither to favor the one nor the other, But fate had resolved that 
I should not always remain thus happy; for he, who had been my 
enemy at the University in Edinburg, had come to America, as 
a colonel in the British army, and had unfortunately discovered 
my retreat. The English had entered into a treaty with the In- 
dians, who were to be their allies against the Americans: and this 
circumstance, which I fancied would be my security, proved my 
ruin, and blasted my happiness forever. I shall relate the first 
misfortune which befell me, and even now my soul sickens when 
I think of it. 

A young officer in the British army, had seen, and had fallen 
desperately in love, with my eldest daughter; who was now sixteen 
years of age, and as exquisitely beautiful, in the formation of her 
features and the symmetry of her form or figure, as had been her 
mother in the days of her bloom. Her oval face was moulded 
after the Grecian models of beauty, her features being regular and 
fully developed, over which an intellectual expression played like 
sunlight upon a full-blown rose, giving an inexpressible loveliness 
to the bloom that heightened their beauty. Her dark eye had in 
it the dazzling brilliance of the diamond, and fascinated the behol- 
der with a spell that was irresistible. Her figure was of the middle 
stature, and moved with a quick, light step, in which grace and 
dignity were blended. In a word, I might describe her in the 
sublime language of Milton, when speaking of Eve: 

"Grace was in all her stejDS, heav'n in her eye; 
In all her gestures dignity and love." 

Oh! how the pride of the father swelled my heart, when I gazed 
upon that darling daughter, and conversed with her on classic 
subjects; for I had devoted much time to the pleasing task of edu- 
cating my children in the higher branches of learning, until they 
were looked upon as wonders among my neighbors, the education 
of whose children extended no further than the simple acquisition 
of reading, writing and arithmetic. None but a father can have 
any conception of the pride and pleasure with which I viewed my 



78 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

children, particularly this lovely and accomplished daughter, who 
displayed talents, beauty and grace, calculated to shine in the 
courts of Europe, and to adorn and dignify any circle of society. 
Oh God! how my heart bleeds with sorrow — how my soul shud- 
ders with horror, when I think of the melancholy fate of that 
idolized and lovely daughter! But the ways of Providence are 
truly mysterious, and I have learned to bow to His decrees. 

As observed before, a young English officer had seen, conversed 
with, and conceived a devoted affection, for my daughter, named 
Rosalie, in honor of her mother; who, to do her only common 
justice, was one of the best of women. Delancy, the lover of ray 
child, laid siege to and won her heart, ere we were aware that his 
attentions arose from anything else than mere admiration of her 
talents and beauty, and the agreeable pastime he enjoyed in her 
society. When he appealed to me for my sanction to their union, 
I represented to him that he was a stranger, whose character and 
connections I knew not, and that the life he led would for the 
present at least, render it impossible for me to consent. 

He acknowledged the justice of my refusal with so much candor, 
and with so gentlemanly a bearing, that I felt an interest in him, 
and regretted the necessity of refusing him the hand of my daugh- 
ter, as I was soon fully convinced that he possessed her heart. 
For a time I heard nothing more of the matter, though I could 
plainly perceive the effect which my refusal had on the feelings of 
Rosalie, who loved Delancy with all the undying constancy of 
woman, as events amply proved. 

Rosalie was one of those gentle, confiding, affectionate and obe- 
dient daughters, who had never pained the hearts of her parents, 
in her life, with a single act of disobedience until the occurrence 
of the one which I am about to describe, and for which, oh God I 
she, as well as her parents, paid so dearly ! 

Delancy had ceased paying his visits to Rosalie at our cottage; 
but they met, without our knowledge, at the house of a neighbor, 
until the presence of American soldiers rendered it imperative for 
him to cease visiting there. But his fascinating power had riveted 
irrevocably the chain of love around her heart; and, notwithstand- 
ing the powerful appeals of her aunt, Elvira, and the gentle admo- 
nitions of her mother, she in vain essayed to free herself from the 
sweet bondage — she loved on, with a devotion that no power on 
earth could overcome. When Delancy could no longer visit her, 
he wrote to her language that breathed the very luxury of love; 
and implored her to fly to the impatient arms of him, who prized 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 79 

her above all else that the world contained, and who would perish 
in protecting her from danger. She relied upon his honor, and 
her reliance was not misplaced; for Delancy was upright in his 
intentions, and loved her with an intensity of feeling that was only 
surpassed by that of the adoration of her own heart. 

Rosalie secretly resolved to follow the fortunes of him who, she 
was satisfied, would act an honorable part; and she consoled her- 
self, in having resolved to disobey her parents and forsake her 
happy home, by the reflection that her own dear, idolized father, 
had done so before her. According to her determination, it was 
arranged by Delancy, that he should send a party of swift-footed 
Indian allies, who should convey her to the future husband of her 
heart. 

It was at that season of the year, when the trees of the forest 
were in full bloom, and all nature was decked in her most gaudy 
attire; that a dozen of strong, swift Indians were despatched to 
convey her to the British camp ; and a lovelier night never shrouded 
the world in silence. The full moon rose, round as the shield of 
Ajax, over the eastern hills; and walked up the great hall of hea- 
ven with all the brilliance and beauty of a new made bride, who 
comes forth to meet her husband. Rosalie, with a throbbing heart, 
had retired with the rest of the family ; but not to rest. She packed 
up her clothes in readiness, and then sat down at the window to 
reflect upon the daring step she was about to take, which might 
render her happy or forever miserable. Not a sound disturbed 
the tranquillity of the scene around her, which was full of bloom 
and beauty; but she was too much excited; too much absorbed 
in the contemplation of what was soon to take place, to enjoy the 
exquisite charms of nature. The gay birds of the forest, that all 
day long had poured forth their song of joy, had retired to their 
nests; and the myriads of insects, that had hummed in the sun- 
shine, were now silent^-all the busy tenants of the world had 
sunk to repose, save the restless, beating little heart of Rosalie. 

Hour after hour of anxious suspense passed, and still sat that 
fair creature, at the open window, gazing at the moon ; while, 
ever and anon, a tide of tears poured over the roses and lilies that 
bloomed upon her cheeks — still she sat listening for the sound of 
the footsteps of the dark-browed children of the forest, to whose 
care was to be entrusted that beautiful creature, who was the idol 
and the angel of Delancy's heart. 

At length a sound in the dim distance faintly fell upon her ear, 
and she started to her feet with indescribable emotions of mingled 



80 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

pain and pleasure. Again she listened. She could not be mis- 
taken — it was indeed the signal, which the terrific messengers 
were to give. Rosalie hastily snatched the bundle, containing her 
clothes, and descended the stairway, with a soft and silent step 
which could not break the slumber of her parents, who, alas! 
were totally unconscious of the fatal resolve of their idolized 
daughter. 

When she reached the door, she turned, with tearful eyes, and 
bade farewell to her parents, and the sacred home of her heart, in 
the shades of which she had spent the happy days of childhood; in 
whose halls she had played with her brothers and sisters; and in 
which she had gradually put on all the blushing bloom and beauty 
of womanhood. Scarcely had she performed this pious act of 
devotion, ere the tall, dusky forms of the Indians, with their painted 
and grotesque faces, appeared in the yard before her. 

Startled at their terrific appearance, she motioned them to be 
silent; and then stole into the apartment, where her brothers and 
sisters were locked in deep slumber. Approaching the bed, where 
lay her little sister, the youngest and the interesting pet of the 
family; she knelt down, tenderly embraced her, and imprinted a 
fervent kiss upon her lips, while tears of regret gushed from her 
eyes, already swollen with weeping. 

Returning to the yard, she bade a last farewell to the home of 
her childhood, where she had known nothing but unalloyed hap- 
piness; and then gave a sign to the Indians that she was ready to 
follow them through the wild, unfrequented paths of the forest. 
Undine, the leader of the Indians, gently took her in his arms, as 
a father would lift an infant; and, in a few minutes, they were 
buried in the gloom of the almost boundless forest. Rosalie's 
heart beat quickly, at the thought of him who was anxiously waiting 
for her arrival; and, in the happiness of hope, little did that beau- 
tiful creature dream of the awful destiny that awaited her — little 
did she dream of the agony that was to follow her disobedience. 

Delancy, impatient and anxious to clasp in his arms the fair 
object of his idolatry, for he was an honorable man, and loved 
Rosalie with an intensity that amounted to adoration, started off 
in the direction that the Indians had gone, in the hopes of meeting 
them. He knew nothing of the machination of Colonel Manley, 
who hated me with a bitterness that nothing could extenuate or 
appease. He was aware of Delancy's intention to marry my 
daughter, and had suggested the plan of sending a party of Indians 
to conduct her to his arms. 



WRITINGS OF THE MtLFORD BARD. 81 

After the first party had left, Manley secretly despatched another 
company of Indians, promising them a handsome reward if they 
would take her from her conductors and bring her to him, he 
having the base intention of seeking her ruin. He gave them 
orders to lake her dead or alive, and to prepare them for the hor- 
rible alternative of imbruing their hands in the blood of so lovely 
a creature, or of conducting her to his salacious embrace, worse 
to a virtuous woman than death itself, he gave them liquor freely, 
until they were intoxicated to that degree which arouses the tiger 
passions of the heart. 

The inebriated Indians departed, with the assurance that they 
would have her dead or alive; and the desperately wicked heart 
of Manley waited to receive her at a lonely place appointed, or to 
receive the scalp of her long beautiful hair. In either case, he 
felt that his malicious heart would be gratified. He would either 
have the bleeding memento of the lovely martyr, or have the beau- 
tiful Rosalie in his power, and have the mean, dastardly triumph 
over violated virtue. The man who tramples upon, and trifles with 
the affections of confiding woman, is a stranger to all noble and 
manly principles of honor; he who betrays her by false protesta- 
tions and promises, is a base villain; but for him, who like Colonel 
Manley, seeks by stratagem and force to ruin an innocent and 
beautiful creature, and that, too, to wreak his vengeance on another, 
there is no epithet in the catalogue of villainy sufficiently heinous 
to characterize him. 

In the course of the night the second party of Indians returned 
to the secret place, designated by Colonel Manley, bearing in 
their hands the bloody trophy. Manley, though disappointed at 
not having the person of his base passion in his power, was never, 
theless gratified at the unutterable anguish he would thus send to 
the soul of him whom he hated. He smilingly paid down the sum 
of money he had promised, and received into his hands the beau- 
tiful hair which hung in clustering curls, and was lovely even as a 
bloody scalp. 

The Indians employed by Delancy returned to inform him that 
they had been met by the other party on their way with the fair 
Rosalie in their arms, when the object of their solicitude was 
demanded, that they resolutely refused the demand, and that an 
altercation ensued. During a severe battle, Rosalie was murdered, 
and her scalp carried away in triumph. 

The grief of Delancy, who met the Indians at a short distance, 
knew no bounds. In his despair he rent his garments, and acted 
11 



82 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

like a man bereft of his senses. Not less was the heart-rending 
grief that was carried to every bosom in my hitherto happy cottage, 
where sorrow had been a stranger, and where death had never 
entered. All had been sunshine in our joyous circle; and now, 
when the cruel intelligence came that our idolized and lovely 
daughter had been murdered by the Indians, for we knew not yet 
that Manley had been the instigator of the bloody deed, dreadful 
and miserable indeed, were its effects. My poor wife, under the 
blov;, fell into a severe spell of sickness, and into a state bordering 
on insanity. For a length of time, I looked upon her death as in- 
evitable, and gave myself up to unavailing despair. Oh! the recol- 
lection of that heart-breaking event still harrows up my soul, and 
the tears of anguish are now streaming while I write. 

My wife and her sister Elvira, who were both prostrated by the 
fall of Rosalie, after unheard of suffering, at last recovered suffi- 
ciently to resume their duties; but the cloud of despair, that 
gathered on their brows, was never removed. They were never 
after seen to smile. 

The most cruel and unrelenting heart would suppose that the 
murder of Rosalie was sufficient atonement to satisfy the most 
malicious and revengeful heart, but it did not, as I shall relate 
hereafter. The wi::ked soul of Colonel Manley yet panted for an 
opportunity more fully to gratify his hatred towards me, and to 
revenge the fall of his guilty brother. 

Oh! what a cha;;ge had taken place in our cottage! But a 
short time before, the merry voice of the younger Rosalie rivalled 
the mocking bird in its song, that rung through our happy halls; 
and, from morning till night, no ^^ing was heard but the sounds of 
mirth and joy. Now that sweei ^ ''".e was hushed, and every eye 
was weeping — every bosom heavi.' ae deep groan of anguish and 
despair. 

The death of Rosalie had proved too much for the noble soul 
of Delancy to bear — he had sunk under the infliction of such 
misery, and had become hopelessly deranged. He raved, and 
called upon the r^ueof his butchered bride, but he called in vain. 
None can realize i i sorrow of Delancy, but those who have had 
the cup of bliss dashed from their lips, just as they were tasting 
the delicious draught. His soul of honor could not bear the be- 
reavement, and sinking under the severe blow, he pined in phy- 
sical health, while reason lay in melancholy ruins. Of all the 
afflictions that man is heir to, derangement of mind is the most 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD, 83 

severe as well as the most to Ve deplored and pitied. In the lan- 
guage of the celebrated Dr. \Vnits, 

"Were I so tall as t' reach the pole, 
Or measure ocean with a span; 
I must be measured by my sou], — 
The mind's tlie standard of the man.'' 



CHAPTER XIII. 

•' Man's inlmmanity to man, 
Makes countless thousands mourn."— Burns. 




EVERE as was the effect of the fate of Rosalie on me, 
I soon verified the truth of the trite proverb, that misfor- 
tunes seldom come alone. The malignity of Manley 
knew no bounds, and he was busy in inventing plans for 
my destruction, nor did he fail at last in his wicked design. My 
heart bleeds afresh, while I record the fiendish plan — the way in 
which he effected my ruin. Oh! memory, meiaory, how pleasing 
art thou to those who dwell on departed day? -^rd scenes of bliss, 
but to me thou art dreadful! Thou remindest me of happiness, 
only to render me more wretched by the recollection of hours of 
heart-breaking agony, and scenes that make my soul shudder 
while I recall and record them. 

At the period of which I write, the Indians, encouraged by the 
British, were wreaking their vengeance on the unprotected deni- 
zens of the wilderness. Their hands were reeking with the gore 
of the aged and the innocent, while midnight glittered with the 
blaze of burning homes, and the forest echoed the shrieks of the 
assailed and the yells of the assailants. Oh God ! terrific indeed 
were the bloody scenes that occurred; scenes sufficient to melt 
the heart of a demon! 

It was in Autumn, that melancholy season of the year, when 
the falling leaves, and the general decay of nature, reminds us of 
the doom of mortality — that season so typical of age, when man 
is admonished that the shadows of evening are lengthening, and 
that ere long, like the leaves of the forest, he will fall — that I was 
under the necessity of going to a distant town, on business of im- 
portance, that coqld not be delayed or neglert?rl. As I had never 



84 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

taken part in the warfare between the colonies and the mother 
country, I considered my family perfectly safe in the vicinity of the 
British, and departed on my journey on horseback without a 
single fear. 

I was leisurely riding along a road not much frequented, in the 
depth of the then almost interminable forest, and was sadly musing 
on the fate of my dearly beloved daughter, Rosalie, when I was 
suddenly recalled to consciousness by the tramp of a horse among 
the fallen leaves, and looking up, I beheld the demon whom I now 
hated as much as he had, and still hated me. I recognized, at the 
first glance, my old rival at Edinburg. 

"Villain!" said Manley, "we are well met in this solitary wil- 
•derness, and you shall see how soon and how easily I can rid the 
world of a scoundrel, and the murderer of my brother;" and 
he bore down upon me full tilt, sword in hand, though I was 
unarmed, save with a heavy hickory stick, which I had fancied and 
cut for a cane. 

"A villain be the victim then," I said, as he struck at me a tre- 
mendous blow, which must have sent me reeling from the saddle, 
had I not parried it with the stick ; and the broken sword rung, as 
a part fell quivering on the ground. 

In an instant I leaped to the earth, as he drew from his holster a 
pistol, and, levelling it, drew the trigger. But fortunately it missed 
fire, and ere he could re-fix it or draw from the holster the other, 
I flew at him like an enraged tiger, and with a well aimed blow 
felled him to the ground. Disdaining to triumph over a fallen foe, 
and not wishing to have the stain of murder upon me, for I did 
not yet know him to be the murderer of my daughter, I leaped 
upon my horse, ere he revived, and fled. 

From that hour he swore vengeance against me, and that he ful- 
filled his oath, oh God ! how miserable a witness was I afterwards 
made! How bitterly did I have to deplore that vengeance! 

Owing to the tedious transaction of some important business, I 
was detained from home nearly a week. Having accomplished it, 
I hastened home with all speed, anxious to look once more upon 
my wife and children, who were dearer to me than life iiself. I 
had never before remained from home so long, and none but a 
husband and father can appreciate the blissful feelings of my heart, 
as I passed through the last skirt of woodland, and approached 
nearer and nearer home, that happiest spot on earth, though it be 
in the wilderness or in the desert. My mind was occupied with 
the thought of the joy of my children, particularly my youngest, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 85 

when they should behold the toys and other presents I had pur- 
chased for them. I fancied the joy I should feel when my wife 
should meet me with her accustomed fascinating smile, and when 
my children should gather around me, contending for the first kiss. 
Though I had lost one, the eldest daughter, I was still the happy 
father of a number of as lovely cherubs as ever blest a parent. 
My heart swelled with indescribable emotions, as I ascended the 
hill that hid my cottage from my view. 

As I ascended the hill, I wondered that no one was on the look- 
out for my approach. Never had I returned home before, without 
seeing one or more watching on the brow of the hill for my com- 
ing. But oh! God of mercy! when I had reached the summit, the 
soul-sickening truth flashed upon my mind. There lay my cottage 
in undistinguishable ruins, a heap of ashes, among which an In- 
dian that I knew, was looking for pieces of money and other things 
of value that the flames could not devour. My heart sunk within 
me; I felt as if I had received a deadly blow upon my brain, and 
I fell insensible, to the ground. When I recovered my senses, 
the Indian was bathing my brow, and I asked, with a breaking 
heart, for my wife and children. He pointed to the ruins, and 
again I fainted. After a time, he related that Colonel Manley had 
instigated the Indians to do the cruel deed. I searched among the 
ruins for the bones of my beloved, but I could only find small frag- 
ments, there having been burnt with the building so much bacon 
and beef, that the intensity of the heat must have been very great. 

Oh! who can describe the agony I felt, when the thought came 
into my mind of the pangs of my poor wife and children, when 
broiling in the flames! God of heaven! how great were the ago- 
nies I suffered, while I surveyed the small pieces of bone, that I 
picked from the ashes, and wondered whether they were those of 
my dear wife, or to which one of my darling children they be- 
longed! Oh! what years of misery did I endure in that brief 
period when, in thought, I called them up before me. 

Grief is conducive to sleep, and in dreams that night, as I lay 
among the leaves of the forest, my wife and children were again 
gathered around me, and again I pressed them to my bosom in 
joy, as in the happy days that were gone forever. Oh ! in dreams 
did ray dear little prattling boy, the idol of my heart, climb my 
knee again to snatch the envied kiss; again I met the sweet smile 
of Rosalie, and pressed her angelic form to my bosom in bliss 
untold; but oh horror! I awoke to a full sense of my misery and 
forlorn condition — I awoke to look upon the ruin of all my hopes. 



86 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

I awoke to a realization of blasted bliss, and to the lonely, heart- 
sickening consciousness that I was alone in the world, with 
nothing to love me, or to love. Oh! yes, I awoke to behold my 
happy home a heap of rubbish, among which were the relics of 
those I had loved more than life, and to restore whom I would 
freely have suffered a thousand deaths. My grief was so great that 
I could not weep, and yet my heart was ready to burst. But my 
tears are now flowing freely, while I write the recollection of that 
heart-rending scene, in which I was suddenly bereft of all that I 
loved on this side of the Atlantic. Never, since that hour in 
which I found myself alone in the world, have I known a moment 
of bliss. From that hour I vowed revenge. Yes, I knelt down 
on the burning bosom of my home! upon the fiery tomb of my 
family, my heart's beloved, and swore that I would avenge their 
horrible death — that I would never rest, until I had revenged their 
fall in the blood of their dastard destroyer. 

The Indian informed me of the author of the deed, which de- 
prived me of all I held dear; and, also, that Manley had been the 
instigator of the doom of my daughter, Rosalie. Was not the 
fate of my daughter sufficient to arouse the spirit of revenge in a 
father's heart? Was it not sufficient, without the addditional in- 
jury of the ruin of my whole family? 

As I stood upon the brow of the hill, and look the last view of 
that ruined home, where I had enjoyed so much real happiness, 
my eyes filled, for the first time, with tears, and I felt that I was 
indeed, a blasted man. I felt that there was no more happiness 
for me in this world, bereft as I was of every one in whose veins 
my blood ran. Oh! with what a forlorn, soul-sickening sensation, 
did I turn to leave that spot for ever. Never can I forget my feel- 
ings at that sad moment. 

The land, on which my cottage last stood, was my own. I 
sold it to a neighbor on certain conditions, and resolved to join 
the American army, that I might have the better opportunity in 
battle, to meet my enemy and gratify my revenge. But I soon 
saw that I could render more service by following the army, and 
gaining intelligence by means of disguise, in the art of which 
few could excel me. I had been a member, while at the Univer- 
versity of Edinburg, of a company of amateur players; and melo- 
dramas being the principal plays we performed, I took parts that 
were romantic and uncouth, by which I acquired the art of so 
completely disguising myself, that few would have suspected my 
transformation. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 87 

I followed the American army wherever it went, and lived but 
in the hope of meeting in battle, the object of my revenge. My 
soul burned for vengeance. My injuries had been so great, that 
forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and though I felt that re- 
venge was an ignoble passion, yet without that thirst for vengeance 
which was burning in my heart, I should have spurned life and 
sought the quietude of the grave; for oh! when I thought of what 
the Indian had told me, of the manner in which Manley had 
blasted my happiness, my soul was on fire. When I thought of 
the cruelties he practised, in hiring the Indians at midnight hour 
to fasten the doors and windows of my cottage, and burn my 
family alive — when in fancy, I heard their screams, and their pray- 
ers to be spared from so cruel a death — when in imagination, I 
saw the reality of my cottage in a blaze, and my poor wife, with 
uplifted hands, imploring mercy, while the crackling flames were 
gathering around her. When, musing, I saw my children 
crying for help, and my poor little darling boy writhing in the fire, 
the revengeful spirit of a demon actuated my heart, and I longed for 
the hour when I should be the blood-stained avenger of my mur- 
dered family. Would to Heaven that I had reached home when the 
deed was done, that I might have died in defence of my beloved — 
that I might have revenged the wrong, and perished on the pyre 
of my shrieking family! Oh! what years of solitary anguish might 
I have thus escaped! What an age of heart-wrung grief would 
have been spared me. But it seemed that a life of misfortune was 
mine, and that, with much of real bliss, I was doomed to endure 
much of anguish, almost too severe for human endurance. Would 
to heaven that the memory of the past were a sealed book ! Oh ! 
that the recollection of my past life could be obliterated from the 
desert waste of memory forever! My heart, that once beat high 
with hope and was illumined with the light of love, has now 
become the tomb of affection, in which are inurned the ashes of 
my dear departed wife and little ones, the remembrance of whom 
harrows up my soul. Life is indeed a desert now to me. I see 
no hope, no happiness on this side of the grave. I have nothing 
to bind me to life, no pursuit in this world but revenge, and never 
will I rest till I have avenged the ruin of my race. From my own 
countrymen and kindred I have received nothing but wrongs, from 
my cradle to the present hour; while among strangers, in this 
land, I have found friends, who sympathised in my sorrows, and 
sought to bind up my bleeding heart. I will therefore, strike for 
the liberty they are fighting for, while I wreak my vengeance on 



bo WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

those who have wronged me, particularly Manley, whose mean 
and cowardly attacks have blasted me forever. When I have seen 
my hands reeking with his blood, I shall be willing to die. When 
I have seen this lovely land freed from the yoke of her enemy, I 
shall be satisfied, and not till then. 



-^ — » ^ 






C HAPTER XIV. 

" Cry havoc ! and let slip the dogs of war. 
That this /oul deed shall smell above tlie earth, 
Groaning witU carrion men for burial," — Siiakspeare. 

^OR some time I followed the army of Washington with- 
1S> out being noticed, save by some few, who could not 
C) avoid observing my impetuous career in battle, for I 
rushed into the thickest of the fight, and the enemy fell 
before my fearless arm like wheat before the cradler's scythe. 
What did I care for danger or death ! All that I loved were dead! 
I felt that I was alone in the world, and made a hermit by my 
fellow-man, and I fought like an enraged tigress robbed of her 
young ones. 

At the battle of Brandywine my daring achievements were no- 
ticed by many, for I was ever seeking the object of my revenge, 
and in the hope of meeting Manley hand to hand, for I scorned 
meanly to take the advantage of him, I dealt death to every one 
who opposed my progress. Several times he went by me, like 
lightning on his splendid charger, and I struck at him, but was 
unnoticed. When the British and Americans were desperately 
fighting at the crossing-place, called Chadd's Ford, and a bridge 
had been made of dead bodies, I struck at Manley a terrible blow 
and unhorsed him, but ere I could deal death to him, the tide of 
war rolled onward and I lost sight of him, not however without 
the satisfaction of knowing that I had wounded him, for a stream 
of blood was pouring down his face. 

The battle ended, and I felt dejected, dispirited, I had not ac- 
complished the sacrifice to the manes of my murdered family. 
Every hour I thirsted more for revenge. I had the gratification, 
however, to hear that Colonel Manley had been seriously wounded, 
and my heart leaped with the first impulse of joy I had felt since 
I had gazed on the ruin of all that I held dear. I still lived in 



■WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 89 

hope that I should yet be crowned with success in avenging those 
who perished in the flames of my cottage. 

When the army of Washington came here into winter-quarters, 
I resolved to make my habitation also at Valley Forge, and by 
chance, while wandering in the forest, I discovered this cave. 
Here I made my lonely home, so suitable to my forlorn feelings; 
and as the British army was quartered in Philadelphia, I deter- 
mined, by means of disguise and by playing the wizard, to render 
all the assistance in my power to Washington, by communicating 
to him the plans of the enemy. Several times, when disguised 
and among the British, did I escape by a miracle. Once by the 
powers of ventriloquism that I possessed, I saved myself. With 
the family of Summers, from whose treachery I saved Washing- 
ton, I became acquainted by mere accident, while wandering 
about Philadelphia as an Englishman just arrived. By my daring 
disguises I have been enabled to render much service, and hope 
to render more. While here, at Valley Forge, I have become 
warmly attached to Captain Danvers and his amiable wife, Nora, 
who, in her devotion to her wounded husband, reminds me of my 
poor unfortunate wife in her younger days. I must have some- 
thing to love, and on them I have fixed my affections. Their 
difficulties and distresses I deeply sympathize in, for they remind 
me of my own. But for me, they must have suffered more anguish 
than they have known already. 

To-morrow, the army leaves Valley Forge to enter on a new 
campaign, and I shall follow, that I may finally accomplish my 
revenge, and assist in achieving that liberty which so brave and 
hospitable a people deserve. Should I ever live to return to Valley 
Forge, and to this cave, I shall resume this history of my life. 



Here, in the manuscrijot of the mysterious man, was a space, and when he 
commenced again, it was with ink of a different shade. 



12 



90 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



CHAPTER XV. 

" The storm of war is past, and peace, once more. 
Smiles on Columbia's green and glorious shore." 



(S) 




HAVE returned, and set down once more in this cave ; 
and here will I finish my narrative. The stormy war is 
ended, and the glorious flag of freedom is triumphant, a 
happy people are blest at last with liberty ! Immortal 
honor to the name of George Washington, who achieved it! 

When I left Valley Forge with the army, I felt a pleasure, if I 
have ever known what pleasure was since my misfortunes, I say I 
felt pleasure at seeing Captain Danvers once more upon his feet, 
and his wife smiling at his side, after having suffered unheard of 
privations and sorrows. He was ready again to meet the enemies 
of his country in battle, and she to follow his fortunes, and minister 
to him in the hour of anguish or of sickness ; and many an hour 
of anguish did that devoted woman suffer for his sake. 

At the battle of Monmouth I anxiously expected to meet again 
the man by whose cruelty I had been made wretched. And during 
the conflict we did meet, and long and bloody was the contest be- 
tween us, but just as I was in the act of despatching him, I was 
furiously attacked by a young man, whom I recognized as Charles 
Moreland, the apostate brother of Nora, by marriage to her sister, 
Charlotte Summers. In cleaving him to the earth, I lost sight of 
my bitter foe, and night coming on, the battle ceased. That night 
the Americans slept upon their arms, intending to renew the con- 
flict on the morrow; but when the morning dawned, the enemy 
had fled. Clinton, fearful of a second attack, had decamped 
during the night, and passed on through Middletown to Sandy 
Hook, and finally to New York. 

I now purchased a splendid horse with a part of the proceeds 
of my land, and followed the army as close as a shadow follows 
its substance. In every engagement my eye was ever seeking one 
object. He occupied my mind by day and by night, but I did not 
meet him in combat, until the battle of the Cowpens took place 
in South Carolina. We met during the heat of the battle, and in- 
stantly recognized each other. Furious indeed was the onset — 
terrible was the conflict. My horse seemed to be actuated by the 
same fiery spirit that burned in the bosom of his rider, and at the 
first blow, the blood gushed from us both. We both wheeled at 
the same moment, and came up again with the velocity of a 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 91 

whirlwind. At the second blow I missed him, by a plunge of my 
horse, and reeled on my saddle. He wheeled suddenly, to repeat 
the blow ere I could recover; but I parried the stroke, and dealt 
him a tremendous one upon the head. My sword wrung like a 
shivered glass vessel. As we wheeled again, I drew a pistol from 
my holster and fired. The ball struck him on the face, and carried 
away part of his cheek. This unhorsed him, and he fell, dead as 
I supposed, to the ground. In the joy of the moment I leaped 
from my horse to triumph over the success of my revenge, for we 
were now some distance from the contending hosts of Tarleton 
and Morgan; but what was my surprise, when Colonel Manley 
leaped from the ground and, like a wolf covered with blood and 
his teeth gnashing with rage, rushed upon me with more fury than 
before. Hand to hand the fight between us was renewed, but so 
nearly equal were we in the use of the sword, that for some time 
neither had the advantage. But the longer the contest continued, 
the more savage did each become, till we foamed at the mouth 
like two mad animals, and both were covered with blood and dust. 
A cut on my head filled my eyes with gore, while I had given my 
antagonist a thrust that had severed a blood vessel, and the purple 
current was pouring forth profusely. At length we both became 
so weak, from the loss of blood and the long continued contest, 
that we could scarcely stand, and with a horrible expression of 
countenance, he at last staggered and fell fainting on the ground. 
I rushed upon him, to despatch him ; but I could not strike a 
prostrate foe, though he had so basely murdered my family. 

In the meantime the brave Morgan had defeated the British, 
and taken five hundred prisoners, with all the artillery and bag- 
age of the enemy. Oh! how my heart leaped with joy, when I 
beheld Colonel Manley my prisoner; and how did he groan with 
anguish, when he discovered that he was in my power! His 
wailing, however, was of no avail, and I watched him with the 
eyes of Argus, least, by some means he should escape, for my 
vengeance was not yet consummated. 




92 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

" Such was my life's deceitful morning ; 

Sucli the pleasures I enjoyed; 
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming 

A' my flowery bliss destroy'd. 
Tho' fickle fortune has deceived me, 

She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill; 
Of mony a joy and hope bereav'd me, 

1 bear a heart shall support me still." — Burns. 

)EVER was a human heart prouder of a conquest than 
was mine, when I looked upon my captive ; and never 
did a mind experience stronger contending emotions 
than did mine, whilst musing upon the ruin of my race, 
brought about by him who was now in my power. We felt to- 
wards each other as did Tamerlane and Bajazet, renowned on the 
pages of story. Sleeping or waking. Colonel Manley alone 
occupied my mind. How I should wreak my vengeance upon him, 
who "of many a joy and hope" had truly "bereaved me," was my 
constant thought, by day and by night ; and I felt the bitterness 
of anguish least he should escape my revenge, when I thought of 
the brilliant hopes, of the Eden of bliss, which he had malevo- 
lently blasted. In the language of Ossian, I felt the "joy of grief," 
at the prospect before me of making him taste of the same over- 
flowing cup of agony, that with a demon's hand, he had held to 
my lips, until I had drained it to the very dregs. And that the 
cup he prepared for me was bitter, ever) heart, alive to the finer 
sensibilities of human nature, will readily acknowledge. Oh! yes, 
bitter, bitter indeed. 

Though Manley was humbled, and meanly stooped to beg his 
life, he still secretly hated me. 

"How base, how passing base," said I to him one morning, 
when he hinted that I had it in my power to show my magnanim- 
ity, "must be the man who meanly begs a favor, and pleads for 
the magnanimity of one, whose hopes and happiness he has utter- 
ly blasted! How base, how bereft of every generous impulse, and 
every noble sentiment, must be the wretch, who stoops to beg his 
life from the mercy of him whose life he has made a blank, and 
embittered by his cruelty, and to whose desolate heart he has 
made the world a wilderness! Manley, you are mean indeed, to 
talk of magnanimity. Was it magnanimous to imbrue your cursed 
hands in the blood of my innocent, helpless daughter? Was it 
magnanimous to bid the scalping-knife of the Indian reek with 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 93 

the gore of a beautiful woman, whose very helplessness should 
have demanded your protection ? Was it magnanimous to wreak 
your vengeance on my innocent and unprotected family, and to 
behold my poor wife and children broiling in the flames of my 
home, while their cries and imploring prayers were drowned in the 
war-whoop and yells of savages less savage than yourself? Oh ! 
villain, most damnable villain, was there magnanimity in the mur- 
der of my whole family, in the base butchery of all that T so dearly 
cherished and loved? Oh! how ineffably mean do you appear, 
when you implore the mercy of him, whose darling little children's 
agonizing screams could not melt your heart of adamant ? Away, 
vilest of villains ! To grant mercy to such an unmerciful wretch, 
would outrage the very name of justice, and bid humanity weep 
for the weakness of human nature. Never, till your blood, your 
base blood has atoned for the wrongs you have done me; never, 
till you have atoned for the happiness you have blasted, and the 
innocent beloved ones you have butchered; no, never, till those 
are revenged whose bones are bleaching amid the ashes of my 
home, that but for your accursed ferocity, might have still been 
happy, shall my soul know peace. When you have atoned for 
the misery I have endured, aye, atoned by the sacrifice of that life 
you meanly crave, then shall I be willing to die, and leave a world 
that now is indeed, a waste, a wilderness to me. But mark me. 
Colonel Manley, T will take no mean advantage of you, meanly 
as you crept into the Eden of my bliss, and like the serpent in 
Paradise, destroyed the happiness there. No, you shall fall by 
my hand, but it shall be in fair, open combat." 

My captive listened to this harangue, and his eye brightened 
at the close, for he felt that he did not deserve the lenity shown 
to him. I kept him under my eye, and though badly wounded, 
he for a time rapidly recovered ; but fever ensued, and he was pros- 
trated on a pallet of severe illness. At length the fever became 
so severe that the attending physician expressed doubts of his 
recovery, and as death approached my victim, I felt the ferocious 
spirit of revenge forsake me, until I no longer thirsted for his 
blood. The bitter animosity that had throbbed in every pulsation 
of my heart, at first, sunk into a feeling of apathy and unconcern, 
and finally to something approaching to pity. Strange, strange 
is the heart of man, and still more strange are the passions which 
actuate it! As death approached my captive and intended vic- 
tim, I was astonished to find myself feeling an interest in the fate 
of him whom I had recently hated so virulently, and who had 



94 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

made me a wretched wanderer in the world, without one hope, 
save that of revenge, on which to fix my eye. Yes, when death 
came to release his guilty spirit, I felt pity instead of that soul-ab- 
sorbing desire for vengeance, which had been the theme of my 
mind day and night. 

I saw Colonel Manley die, with a prayer for forgiveness on his 
lips; and, strange as it may seem, I even upbraided myself with his 
death. Though he had not only blasted my happiness, but my 
very soul in the ruin of my household, I felt unaccountably strange, 
a feeling approaching to guilt, in witnessing his last dying ago- 
nies, and oh! if I were miserable before, I found myself infinitely 
more so now. I now felt like one who is entirely deserted, and 
who sees nothing in the world calculated to rouse the energies of 
his soul ; nothing on which to fix the eye of desire ; nothing to excite 
ambition. Oh! how desolate now was my heart, that once had 
been so happy! How dreary was the world, that once had been 
so bright, blissful and beautiful. The last hope that had stirred 
my drooping spirit, the hope of revenge, had perished in my 
heart, and there was nothing to excite ; not a single tie to bind 
me to the world, in which I stood alone. When I gazed upon a 
withered, blighted oak, blasted by the thunder-bolt, I realized my 
own condition by the similitude. Oh! how far, fiir more mise- 
rable was I now, when Colonel Manley, my bitter enemy and the 
destroyer of my race, was dead! In my wretched and forlorn 
condition, with nothing to love, and nothing to hope for, the idea 
of suicide more than once presented itself to my mind, but was 
suppressed by conscience, which, Shakspeare tells us, 

"Makes cowards of us all." 

Yes, reason told me that I had "better bear the ills I had, than fly 
to others that I knew not of." I thought it better to endure "the 
stings and arrows of outrageous fortune, than by opposing end 
them," better to groan on in this world, than rush uncalled into 
the presence of that awful, yet merciful Being, who often sends 
us blessings in disguise. I discharged the unworthy thought from 
my mind, and resolved bravely to bear up against my misfortunes; 
for there is not in this life a spectacle so truly sublime, as to behold 
a good man buffeting the stormy waves of adversity. 

The strong affection T cherished for Nora and her husband, 
whose bravery and brilliant achievements had earned for him an 
envied fame, and raised him to the rank of Colonel, saved me 
from absolute despair; and the desire to minister to their happi- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 95 

riess, constituted now the only link in that mysterious chain which 
bound nie to life. I determined henceforth to tread the path of 
life together with them, and with them to share whatever fortune 
should henceforth bestow on me. 

I followed the army, under Washington or one of his generals, 
and was in most of the battles that occurred after that of the Cow- 
pens, in which the brave Morgan so shamefully defeated the brag- 
gart Tarleton. I was present at the surrender of Lord Corn- 
vvallis, and often did I wish, when in the heat of battle, that some 
unseen stray ball would put a period to those miseries, which con- 
science would not permit my own hand to do. Secretly did I 
hope that chance would end my sorrows, and reunite me to those 
beloved ones who had been so cruelly butchered; for often did I 
fancy the bliss of meeting Rosalie in yon far off home, where sor- 
row is a stranger, and no tears are ever shed. Often, in dreams, 
did I again sit in my once happy cottage, and clasp my wife to my 
bosom, while my little ones climbed my knee, 

"The envied kiss to share," 

but oh! with what unutterable anguish did my bosom swell; what 
tides of tears did my eyes pour forth, when I awoke to find it all 
untrue, and busy memory pictured, in vivid colors, the horrors of 
the past ! 

The war having ended in the triumph of liberty, I was present 
when the great and good Washington bade the army an affection- 
ate farewell, and a more affecting scene I never witnessed. Every 
soldier loved him, and many a manly eye shed tears at the thought 
of parting forever with their beloved chief. To me the thought 
was painful, for I had learned to love him; and now when I con- 
template his character, I am lost in admiration of his greatness, 
and the glory of his virtues. Washington was not only a patriot 
and a soldier; he did not only lead to victory the armies of his 
country; he did not only counsel and direct the operations in the 
field; but he was the very main-spring of the cabinet, and directed 
the deliberations and decisions of Congress with all the energy of 
a master mind. Whether in the camp or the cabinet, the forum 
or the field, he was the same grand and glorious character. 

Bidding an eternal adieu to this great man, to whom I had ren- 
dered many important services, and who begged me to call upon 
him if necessity should come upon me, I left the army, and with 
my usual gloomy feelings, I wended my way to Philadelphia, and 
there I resolved to visit Valley Forge, and this cave, which I have 



96 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

called the wizard's cave. As I returned from the South, I stopped 
to look at the grave of Colonel Manley, the destroyer of my peace ; 
but my feelings, when bending over his lowly bed, no language 
can describe; no fancy can conceive. The past, with all its bliss 
and beauty; with all its miseries and horrors, rose up before me, 
and in a kvi minutes I lived years of agony. 

I am now near the close of the history of my life, and what is 
to be my future destiny I know not; I had almost said, I care not. 
I shall live only for the happiness of Colonel Danvers and his 
amiable wife who are poor, and for whose welfare I will work. 
There is nothing else to bind me to life, and as to happiness, I 
never expect to partake of it again on this side of the grave. 
Here I will end my narrative, and leave this cave forever. 




CHAPTER XVII. 

" And joy shall shine again upon that brow 
Wliere sat but dark despair, and hope relight 
The gloomy heart, where youthful bliss and love 
Had found a tomb."— Anon. 

)HE mysterious man, George St. Leger, after finishing the 
revelation or history of his life, wandered through the 
cave for a while, in great distress of mind, and then left, 
forgetting in his perturbed state the manuscript which 
he had placed in a secret crevice of the rock, and where the 
soldier found it as described. 

He returned to Philadelphia, where he had left Colonel Danvers 
and his wife Nora, the amiable Nora, who had, through the tur- 
moils and terrors of a bloody war, followed him, partaking of his 
joys and sorrows, and ministering to his wants, when sick and 
wounded. The generous George St. Leger, furnished all the 
money he had remaining, with which Nora established a little 
fancy store, on the profits of which they lived comfortably. But, 
though they thus lived comfortably, thousands were in distress and 
poverty ; for, when peace came and liberty smiled, the country 
was in a deplorable condition, being overwhelmed with debt, and 
trade and manufactures having decayed. 

In 1787 a general convention of delegates was held at Phila- 
delphia, when a new constitution was framed. St. Leger was 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORn BARD. 97 

walking the street, wlien he suddenly cast his eyes upon the com- 
manding form of Washington, and recognized him in a moment. 
Great was his joy to meet once more the beloved chief, whom he 
had followed to "the tented field." General Washington followed 
St, Leger to the house of Colonel Danvers, whom he well remem- 
bered, and St. Leger there gave him the story of his life. 

After Washington heard him through, he said: 

" Mr. St. Leger, there is an Indian now residing in Virginia, 
who bade me say to you, that he knows some Indians who pos- 
sess some valuable property of yours, and if you will visit him, he 
will have it delivered to you." 

In a moment St. Leger thought of a box of gold coin, which 
was in his cottage when burnt. With the promise to visit Mount 
Vernon and the Indian, Washington and St. Leger parted. 

Some time elapsed ere St. Leger thought again of the box of 
gold, and he prepared to set out on a journey to the residence of 
the illustrious Washington. When he arrived at Mount Vernon, 
the General directed him to the wigwam of the Indian, whom he 
found, and recognized as the one who had told him of the mur- 
derer of his ftimily. It was the same Indian he had seen standing 
upon the ruins of his cottage, when he returned home to find all 
his family destroyed. 

"Years have passed," said St. Leger, "since we met before; and 
since that hour I have known no happiness." 

"Cheer up," returned the good hearted Indian, "there may be 
happier hours in store for you, when I have revealed to you the 
place where you may find your lost property." 

"Alas!" ejaculated St. Leger, with a sigh, "gold has but few 
charms now in my eyes. If I could call up from the grave my 
lost ones, or even one of the least of them, you might talk of hap- 
piness, and my heart would leap to hear you." 

"Listen," said the Indian, seriously. " Had you not a daugh- 
ter?" 

"Oh God ! yes, what of her, speak," exclaimed George St. 
Leger, with deep emotion. 

" Would you again behold that daughter?" 

"Oh ! do not tantalize me, Onoko," exclaimed St. Leger, grasp- 
ing the hand of the Indian, " but tell me, does my daughter yet live ?" 

" She yet lives," said the Indian calmly. 

"God be praised!" cried St. Leger, covering his face with his 
hands and bursting into tears. "Oh! then there is some happi- 
ness still left for this poor heart." 
13 



98 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Your daughter lives with her husband," continued Onoko, 
"and you will find her in Alexandria. Long has she sought, but 
could hear nothing of you." 

"How was she saved?" gasped St. Leger, overpowered by his 
feelings. "Tell me! tell me all, Onoko!" 

"Well, you remember that Delancy and Manley both sent a 
party of Indians to conduct Rosalie through the'' forest, though 
with different intentions. The Indians felt pity for her beauty, 
and that they might both claim their reward, they agreed to con- 
ceal her, and report the story of her death. By this cunning trick 
she was saved, and both parties of Indians received their pay. 
When the war closed, I revealed to Delancy the place where he 
might find Rosalie, and he discovered and married her." 

"Does she know that I yet live?" enquired St. Leger eagerly. 

" No. Two or three years ago she met an old man, with whom 
she became acquainted, and who, on learning that her name had 
been St. Leger, gave her a scroll of paper, which he said he found 
in a cave at Valley Forge, and which bore the name of her father, 
George St. Leger. From that scroll she first learned the fate of 
her family." 

" But does she know I live ?" again anxiously enquired St. Leger. 

"No. This same old soldier informed her that he was told by 
a man who fought at your side, that you fell at the battle of the 
Cowpens, in South Carolina, covered with wounds, and at your 
side died your enemy. Rosalie believes all her family to be dead. 
Your presence will give her great joy." 

St. Leger rose in haste to depart. He showered his thanks 
upon the generous Onoko, and promised, that if ever fortune fa- 
vored him, to remember Onoko. Bidding adieu to Washington, 
to whom he communicated what had passed, he left Mount Vernon 
and hurried on to Alexandria. 

Having arrived at that ancient town, he did not wander long, 
until he beheld the name of Delancy, on a sign at the door of a 
public house, and entered. The moment he beheld Rosalie, who 
was followed by two rosy-cheeked children, he knew her, but did 
not make himself known, lest the sudden and unexpected meet- 
ing should overpower her. Alas! long continued grief and suf- 
fering had made such powerful inroads on his constitution, that 
she did not know him. She believed her father to be dead, and 
therefore did not recognize him. 

The reader may wonder, and think it impossible that Rosalie 
should have lived several years in so ancient a town as Alexandria, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 99 

without the tidings having come to the ears of her father; but it 
was not then as now ; there were no rail roads, no steamboats, no 
magnetic telegraph, scarcely any newspapers, and a mail but sel- 
dom. A travel of a hundred miles was then equal to a transit now 
of many thousands. News was not then transmitted with the 
velocity of lightning. Happy indeed have been the effects of 
freedom. 

By degrees the excited father made himself known, and touch- 
ing to the soul of sensibility was the recognition. Mingled grief 
and gladness filled both their hearts, and Rosalie rushed into the 
arms, and fell weeping upon the bosom of her long lost father. 
To realize the feelings of such a scene, the reader must place him 
or herself in such a situation. 

"Forgive my disobedience, oh! my father," cried the weeping 
daughter, "for oh! what years of anguish did it bring on both!" 

"Speak not of that, my child," sobbed St. Leger, "for the joy 
of this moment cancels all the past. Oh! could I but behold 
the balance of my family, who perished in the flames " 

"God of mercy!" exclaimed Rosalie, interrupting him, "and 
have you not heard " 

"Heard what?" interrogated St. Leger, staring at her like a 
maniac, as he threw her from his arms and rushed across the 
room, not knowing what he did or said. 

"Be calm, my dear father. Did not Onoko tell you " 

"Tell me what?" again enquired the distracted father, again 
interrupting her, and staring wildly at her* 

"I see how it is," said Rosalie calmly, endeavoring to prepare 
her father for the news that she knew would overwhelm him with 
joy. "I see how it is, the generous Onoko, who plead for, and 
saved us all from the tomahawk, has left it for me to communicate 
to you the blissful tidings that our family are all alive." 

Had a ball struck St. Leger in the brain, he could not have 
dropped more suddenly to the floor. Overpowered by the flood 
of joy, he swooned, and Delancy, who came in and learned what 
had passed, thought that sudden joy had killed him, for he remem- 
bered the case of the door-keeper of Congress, who fell dead 
from great joy, when he heard that Cornwallis had surrendered his 
whole army. He had, also, read in Hume's history of England, 
that several died of joy at the restoration of Charles H to the 
throne of Great Britain. 

Delancy was alarmed, for he applied to the usual restoratives in 
vain. St. Leger remained insensible hour after hour, until the 



100 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

physicians, who had been called in, gave up all hope of his recov- 
ery. The grief of Rosalie was unbounded. The thought that her 
father should perish at the very moment when he was about to be 
restored to his long lost family, was severe indeed, for it seemed 
as if she had destroyed him by communicating the blissful news. 

But eventually, by great and constant exertions, the physicians 
succeeded in restoring animation, and he opened his eyes as if just 
awakened from a long and dreary dream. In the course of a few 
days he was perfectly recovered, though he seemed to have en- 
tirely forgotten the cause of his affliction. 

Rosalie gradually and cautiously informed him, how Colonel Man- 
ley had hired a party of Indians to butcher his family and burn his 
cottage, and how Onoko had plead for their lives and saved them. 
She pointed out the tribe of Indians with whom they all were, 
and stated that her husband, Delancy, had sent for them imme- 
diately after Onoko came to Virginia, discovered Rosalie, and told 
her concerning her family. It had been so long since Onoko had 
seen Rosalie, that he had forgotten her, she had so altered since 
her marriage. 

Some time had elapsed since Delancy had sent the second time, 
the first messenger having failed in finding them. St. Leger was 
anxious once more to be united to his wife and children, and re- 
solved to set out in pursuit of them; but, to his great joy, on the 
evening before the day on which he was to start, the messenger 
returned, conducting the elder Rosalie and all her family. 

A scene ensued, when St. Leger and his wife met, which 
beggars description. He was perfectly frantic, and ran to clasp 
his children one after another, though under other circumstances 
he would not have known them, so much had they grown, and 
all being clad in the Indian costume. Great was the rejoicing, 
that day, at the re-union of a family that had been so long sepa- 
rated, and had endured so much of hardship and sorrow. Many 
a sigh of untold grief had they breathed, but all now were happy. 

St. Leger bent his knee before his God, in grateful thanks for 
having restored to him his lost ones, after years of tribulation, and 
when he had given up all hopes of happiness on this side of the 
grave. Scarcely had he arrived in Philadelphia with all his family, 
for young Rosalie and her husband removed with them, ere he 
received a letter from England, which stated that his eldest brother 
was long since dead, and that his parents had been sometime 
dead, having lived to a very advanced age. By the death of his 
father, he being the oldest male of the family living, he was, by 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 101 

the law of primogeniture, heir to the titles and the whole of the 

immense estates of his father, the Earl of . For the titles 

he cared not a farthing, for in fighting for it, he had learned to 
love liberty, and was a true republican. 

St. Leger, once more a happy man and the possessor of im- 
mense wealth, resolved to spend the remainder of his days in 
America; and, with this view, he made a voyage to England, to 
settle and dispose of his estates. Having appointed an agent to 
transact his business, he took passage at Liverpool in a ship bound 
to Philadelphia, and what was his surprise to find, as passengers 
in the steerage, the once proud and wealthy Summers and his 
wife, in the most abject state of poverty. They were returning to 
America, after being banished, and informed St. Leger, that the 
ship on board of which they went as exiles, had been wrecked, 
from which they only escaped with their lives, having lost every 
dollar they possessed. They were now returning in poverty to 
their native land, and they wept when they spoke of their tory 
attempt to betray General Washington into the hands of the 
British. 

When the ship arrived at the wharf at Philadelphia, and the 
friends of the passengers came flocking on board, his eye caught 
the form of the once proud and fashionable Charlotte Summers, 
but oh! how changed! Her husband, Charles Moreland, had 
been killed in battle, during the revolution, after he had, through 
the persuasion of the Summers' family, deserted from the Ameri- 
can army. 

They have met their desert, thought St. Leger, as he went on 
shore, and hastened to the large building in Chestnut street, in 
which his family had been placed. He found them all well as he 
had left them. His first care was to see to the education of his 
children; not only his own, but also those of Delancy and Dan- 
vers. 

St. Leger now lived anew life. The world was again illumined 
by the sun of happiness, and "all the clouds that lowered above 
his house, were in the deep bosom of the ocean buried." His 
generous heart did not forget Onoko, the Indian, to whose gen- 
erous exertion, he owed the safely of his whole family, and the 
happiness he now enjoyed. He invited Onoko to Philadelphia, 
but finding that he preferred the solitude of the forest, he pur- 
chased him a farm in Virginia, stocked it, and settled on him a 
pension for life. To Danvers he was also liberal. Discovering in 
him a penchant for mercantile pursuit, he started him in business in 



102 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Market street, from which, in the course of time, he became one 
of the largest shipping merchants in Philadelphia. 

One evening in winter, whilst St. Leger and some of his family 
were at a party at the house of Danvers, and his splendid parlor 
was alive with the elite of the city, a poor woman came to the 
door to ask charity for her aged father and mother, who were suf- 
fering all the horrors of want. That poor woman was the once 
proud and imperious Charlotte Moreland or Summers. Mr. Dan- 
vers had recently bought the elegant residence in which he lived, 
and was lately removed to it, in honor of which occasion the party 
was given. Charlotte did not know that it was the house of her 
sister Nora, that she had applied to for charity, or her pride even 
in her poverty and want, would have prevented her from calling 
there. But she had committed herself; she was discovered, and it 
was too late now to retreat. The generous Nora endeavored to 
forget the sorrowful time, when, in poverty, she was rudely re- 
pulsed from her father's door, under pretence that she was a poor 
crazy creature who annoyed them. She endeavored to forget the 
cruel language of Charlotte, when she left Valley Forge, trudging 
her way on foot, to implore relief for her poor wounded husband. 
With tears in her eyes, she gave Charlotte money to relieve the 
wants of her suffering parents, and promised to come and see 
them, and provide for them in future. The proud Mr. and Mrs. 
Summers had suffered for turning against their bleeding country 
in the hour of her darkness and danger, and far were they re- 
moved from the wealth and titles which they once expected to 
crown their treachery and treasonable designs. And thus it ever 
is with those who spurn the dictates of virtue, and seek preferment 
in forbidden ways. In the language of Pope: 

"Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 

St. Leger pitied these unhappy people, for they were now hum- 
bled to the dust, and truly penitent. He assisted in lifting them 
from their degradation, and in placing it in their power to live 
comfortably and happy. 

When Washington was chosen the first President of the United 
States, honors awaited the family of St. Leger. He was offered 
and accepted a station under the government, of high distinc- 
tion; and, in after years, his eldest son was sent as a minister- 
plenipotentiary to one of the courts of Europe. Among his de- 
scendants have risen some of the most gifted men that ever sat 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 103 

in Congress, or made the walls of Washington ring with the 
thunders of their eloquence. Dplancy rose to distinction; for, 
like St. Leger, he became an American in heart and soul, and was 
chosen to fill many important and honorable stations. One of the 
sons of Delancy occupied a high position under the government, 
during the administration of Mr. Madison, and became very cele- 
brated as a statesman. Long life seemed to have been granted by 
Heaven to most of those who struggled for liberty. Look at the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence ! But two of them 
died early; the one was drowned, and the other fell in a duel. 
For the others, in length of life, there is not a parallel on the 
pages of history. George St. Leger lived to see his great grand- 
children playing around him. After their reunion, never was there 
a happier or more honored family, than that of 



WHAT is hope devoid of faith, 
In God's immutable decrees? 
It is a rainbow's radiant ray, 
A metor bright that flits away, 
A brilliant bubble on the bay, 
The poet saith, 

That breaks at every breeze. 

And what is faith devoid of light 
Within the immortal soul? 

The consciousness of sins forgiven? 
'Tis but a star that points to heaven, 
An ignis fatuus that leads 
The traveller o'er moiuits and meads, 
Then sinks in night, 

Nor takes him to the goal. 



Ctfiir ta i'iilleii Jforge. 



A smiling country, graced with all that Art 
And Nature join'd, may bring to bless man's heart; 
Where every thing conspires the soul to please, 
And life must pass in opulence and ease. 



ARLY on Saturday morning, the 31st of July, 
1847, the author, in company with one of the 
'proprietors of the Blue Hen's Chicken, one of 
the most popular newspapers in the State of 
^Delaware, started on a travel to Valley Forge, 
celebrated in history as the spot where the illus- 
trious Washington, chief of the American army, 
went into winter-quarters, during the dark and 
dreary days of the Revolution. Our object was 
to view the scenery around Valley Forge, and 
pick up incidents among the old residenters, on 
which to found a Revolutionary Tale. 

We left Wilmington with a fixed determina- 
tion to enjoy ourselves, and to be familiar with 
every thing but — brandy bottles, — and right well 
did we carry out that resolve; for though our 
spirits were ardent in the pursuit of enjoyment and information, 
we studiously avoided ardent spirits. Yet, paradoxical as it may 
appear, we mingled with, and enjoyed the overflowing of, many 
an ardent spirit, while we roamed — not rum-inated abroad. The 
reader will pardon my puury attempt at a pun. 

Our ride to West Chester was not productive of any incidents, 
particularly interesting to the reader; nor did any accidents occur, 
save that we heard of a man who had been struck on the head 
with an axe, which of course was axe-eye-dent. A plague take 
the puns, for if one comes near nie, I cannot help pun-ishing it. 
Oh ! how delightful the corn looked, over the innumerable fields 
we passed, both in Delaware and Pennsylvania! So rank, so tall, 




WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD, 103 

SO green ! I observed one material difference between all the corn 
I saw growing in Pennsylvania, and that which is seen on similar 
land in Kent County, Delaware. It has been remarked, that there 
is no land in the United States, so easily improved, and so pro- 
ductive when improved, as that of Kent County, and I do not 
doubt the assertion. The corn in Pennsylvania is remarkably tall; 
but that which grows on rich land in Kent County, Delaware, 
though not so high by one, two or more feet, is at least one-third 
thicker in the stalk, and bears not only a greater number of ears, 
but those that are larger and longer. But, alas! there is one 
material difference observable in the lands of Pennsylvania and 
those of Kent County, Delaware. While in Pennsylvania you 
scarcely see a foot of ground that is not improved, in Kent County 
you find comparatively little thait i* improved. This is easily ac- 
counted for. The lands in Chester County are occupied generally 
by the owners, whose interest it is to improve them ; while, on the 
contrary, those of Kent are occupied by tenants, who may remove 
at pleasure, seldom remaining more than two or three years; 
hence the unwillingness of the one party to improve the lands 
for the benefit of those who are to come after them ; they 
raise every thing they can, and leave the farm poorer than 
they found -it. All that is required to make Kent County the 
garden spot of Delaware, is for the lands to fall into the hands of 
farmers, men of scientific as well as practical knowledge; whose 
interest it will be to improve them. It is owing to the fact that the 
owners occupy, principally, and improve the farms of New Castle 
County, that the lands in that county have become so much richer 
than those in Kent. Look around you, and it is apparent. Would 
the lands of Messieurs Reybold, and many others, have been what 
they are, had they been occupied by different tenants every year 
or two, and by men who cannot analyze a soil ; distinguish scien- 
tifically one soil from another, or make the proper application of 
manures to different vegetable productions? No. 

But to proceed. West Chester is the most beautiful inland 
town I have ever seen in. any part of the United States that I have 
visited, and it is no wonder that it is so; for it is surrounded by 
fertile fields that, in proper season, groan with golden grain — by 
a vast extent of rich country, equal to the State of Delaware, that 
is amply able to sustain it. I do not mean to infer by this, that 
the State of Delaware is a vast country — I speak comparatively — 
Delaware is like a diamond, diminutive, but having within it inhe- 
rent specific value. West Chester is surrounded by a glorious 
14 



106 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

country, ample in its resources, and filled, as far as I could judge, 
with a liberal, generous, whole-souled people, who do not make 
their day-book their Bible, nor gold their God. Witness their 
public-spirited improvements; their lofty, airy, elegant mansions; 
grand but not gorgeous; beautiful but not extravagantly gay. In 
going to West Chester, we put up at the comfortable hotel of Mr. 
Samuel Guss, where we were well accommodated by a polite 
landlord. 

From the hotel we sauntered forth to the office, of the kind 
hearted and intelligent Mr. Bosee, one of the proprietors and edi- 
tors of the Republican and Democrat; who, after introducing us 
to Mr. Strickland, the other editor, put on his coat, dropped busi- 
ness, and accompanied us about town. As a proof of the hospi- 
tality of the people of West Chester, I will mention one in- 
stance. As we were crossing a street, we were hailed by a gen- 
tleman, who came up, and after making himself known, and 
stating that he had read my writings years ago in Philadelphia, 
concluded by giving us a pressing invitation to dinner, which we 
politely declined, as we had already spoken for dinner at the hotel 
where we stopped. The gentleman alluded to was Mr. Brown, 
proprietor of the superb Mansion House, of which, as well as of its 
very affable, polite and agreeable proprietor, I shall have occasion 
to speak on our return. Mr. Bosee very kindly conducted us to 
the office of the Register and Examiner, and introduced us to the 
agreeable and communicative editor, with whom we conversed 
some time. 

West Chester is not only beautiful in its private and public 
buildings; its wide, airy, clean streets, and city-like places of busi- 
ness; but it is surrounded by elegant situations that give to its 
suburbs or environs a romantic, as well as rural beauty. The 
water works are handsomely arranged. A branch of a rail road 
terminates there, and we saw a large car depart, well filled with 
gay forms and happy faces, for Philadelphia and parts unknown. 
The most prominent object in West Chester, that arrests the eye 
of the traveller, is the splendid, large Court House, that will now 
soon be completed. It is, judging by the immense iron columns 
that are being erected, of the Corinthian order of architecture, 
fire-proof. From the roof rises an octangular tower-like stee- 
ple, that at a distance gives to the town a city-like appearance. 
This large building, I am told, will cost, when completed, near 
fifty thousand dollars; it stands in close contiguity to the old court 
house, which looks like a pigmy in comparison, and reflects great 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 107 

credit on the magnificent liberality of the county. A long, well 
arranged market house is situated in one of the wide streets. 
Some new buildings are being built. 

In the afternoon we left West Chester on our way to Phoenix- 
ville, a distance of about seventeen miles. In passing through 
the rich country bordering on the Schuylkill, the traveller is not 
at all astonished at having left so flourishing and beautiful a town 
as West Chester; for, when his eye ranges over the rich green 
meadows, and gazes over a rolling country, divided into fields on 
which the tall corn, over the distant hills, looks almost like wood- 
lands, he sees evidence of the cause. Oh ! it makes the heart 
glad, when surveying the luxuriant pastures, on which large limbed 
oxen, and fat cows and huge oxen, and noble horses, are graz- 
ing. Such a country would support half a dozen large towns, 
or even cities. Such crops of corn, and so great a quantity, 
never, perhaps, was garnered, as will be taken from this rich 
land this season. There is no cause for wonder that the land is 
rich in this part of Pennsylvania, and no wonder that Pennsylva- 
nia is one of the richest, and might be made by far the richest 
State in the Union. As we rode along the rich and romantic 
banks of the Schuylkill, my eye rested on a lime kiln at every dis- 
tance of a quarter of a mile ; and wherever we see a lime coun- 
try, there is a rich country. The resources of Pennsylvania in 
lime, coal, iron, and indeed every thing that pertains to wealth, 
are inexhaustible; and were her sons endowed with a tithe of the 
tact and talent that distinguish those of Yankeedom— had they 
that spirit of enierprize and invincible perseverance which belongs 
to brother Jonathan of the East, they might by their tact, like the 
fabled character in the Heathen Mythology, turn every thing into 
gold. 

The nearer we approached Phocnixville, the more romantic be- 
came the rolling country. As we ascended a high hill, about two 
miles from the town, the most beautiful and brilliant scene — the 
most lovely and luxuriant landscape broke upon our view that 
my eyes ever surveyed, though I have gazed upon many grand 
and glorious exhibitions of nature. Far as the eye could reach 
around, were spread gay, green vales, and gorgeous hills, rising 
one above another in the form of a perfect amphitheatre; graced 
here and there with beautiful cottages, that looked like the happy 
homes of peace and plenty; and dotted with lone and lofty wood- 
lands. When the magnificent scene first broke upon my view 



108 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

a burst of enthusiastic admiration gushed from my lips, and I ex- 
claimed in the lovely language of Thomas Moore — 

"I knew by the smoke, that so gracefully curl'd 
Around the green elms, that a cottage was near; 
And I said, if there's peace in the world to be found, 
A heart that is humble might hope for it here." 

It was a cloudy day, and how I sighed for a morning sun to be 
shedding his golden rays on that green and glorious scene! How 
I longed for the soft sun-rays of morn to illumine that lovely land- 
scape — that Eden of the earth! Far, far below, in the luxuriant 
valleys, and on the sides of sloping hills, I gazed upon innumera- 
ble cattle grazing, that looked in perspective like guinea pigs on 
a green carpet, so small was the angle of vision through which we 
viewed them from the immense height. Beautiful indeed were 
the extensive fields covered with corn, that, diminished by the op- 
tic angle under which they were viewed, looked like small patches; 
and lots containing acres, seemed to the eye as mere hearth rugs 
covered with a shaggy worsted. Though many sublime scenes 
were witnessed along the banks of the Schuylkill, none were so 
exquisitely grand and glorious as this. Oh! if the first blissful 
abode of man on earth were more lovely, more romantic, more 
sublimely beautiful than this, I said, in my heart, it must have been 
a Heaven indeed; for here all the elements of sublimity and 
beauty seemed to have been exhausted! To my poetic fancy it 
appeared, in its peerless variety, nothing less than a perfect Para- 
dise, where life might pass away in uninterrupted peace and plea- 
sure. Oh! how happy were it here to a pure young heart, away 
from the distracting bustle of a city, to pitch his tent; to rear his 
cottage; surrounded with plenty, and blessed with one gentle 
spirit! How could he here 

"Sigh upon innocent lips, 



On lips never sighed on by any but his." 

The day was almost done — the sun was just sinking behind the 
lonely and lofty woodlands that lifted their heads on the dim and 
distant hills in the west, when we arrived at the thriving and pic- 
turesque, though scattered and neglected town of Phoenixville; 
and put up at the excellent hotel kept by Mr. Brovver, a polite and 
well bred gentleman. After tea, we sauntered forth to the rail 
road, which runs by the town on the east, and is built up ten or 
twenty feet above the common level, as the place for some dis- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 109 

tance is low and wet. Night coming on, we went no further than 
the fine large bridge which crosses the Schuylkill, near the rail 
road. Over this road vast quantities of coal are carried, much of 
which is deposited at this place, to feed the immense iron works, 
in which iron is made from the ore, and manufactured into rail 
road bars. 

Fatigued by our travel, for we are both devoted to sedentary 
employments, we returned to the hotel, with the intention of re- 
tiring for the night; but hearing a loud voice up the street as of 
some one speaking, we advanced to the spot, and found a Wash- 
ingtonian, from Baltimore, addressing a multitude of men on the 
subject of temperance, most of whom were workmen from the 
different factories. He had a hard time of it, and proved, by his 
perseverance, how much he had the great and good cause of tem- 
perance at heart; for he was interrupted, ridiculed, and finally 
forced to relinquish his undertaking, after he had spoken about 
half an hour. He had a hard audience to deal with. His rostrum 
was reared on the street, near the temperance hotel- 
Apropos! It will be recollected that, in the temperance elec- 
tion in Pennsylvania, the license law was abrogated, and the sale 
of ardent spirits prohibited in Chester County. It is the intention 
of dealers in the article to contest the law, as was done in Dela- 
ware. But the law is a matter of moonshine to the people of 
PhcEuixville, or at least to those who are determined to drink 
liquor; for the only obstacle to be overcome in obtaining the 
"joyful," is to cross the Schuylkill, when they are in another 
county, where the sale of liquor is not prohibited by law, and 
where it is kept for sale. The distance, it is said, is but a short 
walk; and thus, in efffect, is rendered null and void the attempt 
to put down the sale and consumption of ardent spirits by the 
ballot box. The attempt to suppress the cause of intemperance 
by force, is futile. If "moral suasion" should prove insufficient, 
the partial exercise of the arm of the law can never accomplish 
it; but, on the contrary, in my opinion, will increase it, by cre- 
ating an organized opposition founded in interest, the strongest 
motive that can sway the human mind; and by increasing desire, 
for it is well known to those acquainted with metaphysics and 
moral philosophy, that restraint is one of the most powerful in- 
centives to desire. Our desire for liberty is more ideal than real, 
for though we might voluntarily confine ourselves to a room for 
days and weeks, no sooner would a tyrant decree that we should 
remain in it one day, than it would be invested with all the horrors 



110 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

of a dungeon, and we should sigh to be freed from it in less than 
an hour, though we were perfectly satisfied before. Would to 
God that every drop of liquor were annihilated from the world, so 
far as relates to intemperance; but it is my humble opinion, that 
though man may by persuasion be induced to relinquish the curse, 
force will increase it, for we invariably feel an increased desire for 
that object or article from which we are debarred. This was the 
case with Adam and Eve, in Paradise. We hear nothing of their 
desire for apple juice, until they were forbidden to taste it ; but 
no sooner did they hear the decree, than the flame of desire was 
lighted in their souls ; and though they were permitted to taste of all 
the rest, none was so delicious to their notion as said apple juice. 
And, as their posterity have done after them, they determined 
to taste it, though certain death was the consequence. Their de- 
sire it seems was stronger than their moral force. Its gratification 
in the very face of the law which directed them to abstain under 
the penalty of death, proved their ruin. The desire for apple juice 
has since sent millions of mankind to untimely tombs. It is a 
desideratum "devoutly to be wished," that the tide of intemper- 
ance could be stayed; for oh! how many of the mightiest men ; 
of the most glorious minds, and heavenly hearts; might be saved 
from ruin, degradation and death, thereby; but, in our first pa- 
rents, we see an example of the influence of force superinducing, 
or, or least, increasing desire for that which was forbidden. We 
see that our first parents were spiritually inclined, for they loved 
the "juice;" which the Egyptians afterwards unfortunately disco- 
vered the mode of distilling; though the alembic is of Arabian ori- 
gin, as it is derived from two Arabic words, al ambix, the pot. 

But to return to Phoenixville. All night long we lay, at Mr. 
Brower's comfortable hotel, with the puffing sounds of locomotives 
in our ears. Scarcely ten minutes elapsed, through the night, 
between the passage of trains transmitting coal. 

In the morning we visited, before breakfast, the immense iron 
works, viewing the great variety of machinery for making iron 
from the ore, and manufacturing it into rail road bars, which saves 
to the country vast sums, heretofore expended for that article in 
England, and for transporting it three thousand miles across the 
Atlantic. It looked queer to us to see the men at work on the 
Sabbath. The cotton factory was closed. In iron works a great 
amount of money must be invested, and profitably, I should sup- 
pose, for they are very extensive. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. Ill 

The streets of Phoenixville are not paved; the gutters are ne- 
cessarily dirty, and the gravel sidewalks very narrow, though the 
town, computing all its scattered parts, contains three or four 
thousand inhabitants. It is, from appearances, a thriving place ; 
and is extremely romantic, having some handsome buildings. The 
agreeable landlord is improving his hotel building. 

"Birds of a feather will flock together," says the proverb; and 
accordingly after breakfast we called on the poet, Mr. J. Bayard 
Taylor, editor of the Phonixville Pioneer, who, by the bye, is a 
beautiful writer; a gifted and very agreeable, good looking young 
man; and, as we expected to find him, affable, and entirely free 
from aristocratic stiffness, and vain, proud pomposity. He was le 
debonnaire, as the French would style him in their sweet, soft, and 
graceful language. Mr. Taylor very kindly agreed to pilot us to 
the further end of the rail road tunnel, which is cut through the 
solid rock of a mountain; but, as he was unfortunately afflicted 
with the jaw-ache, and a coming cloud portended rain, he was 
compelled reluctantly to return, when about half way to the tun- 
nel, and we were deprived of the company and conversation of a 
poet, a man of sound sense, and very easy, graceful, and agreea- 
ble manners. Of Mr. Taylor's poetry, Willis and other distin- 
guished writers of this country, we are informed, have spoken 
in the highest terms of eulogy. He pressed us warmly to call on 
him on our return from the tunnel, as he had some splendid draw- 
ings, engravings, and other matters of taste, to amuse us with ; 
but, as we lost our way in the dense woodlands, and were so 
much delayed in our departure for Valley Forge, we were forced 
to forego the pleasure the interview would have afforded us. The 
paper published by Mr. Taylor, evinces the taste and talent of its 
editor. Success to him; may happiness and prosperity attend 
him. 

After wandering some time in the woodlands, we enquired of a 
gentleman who pointed our way along the canal to the mouth of 
the Tunnel. Some men were engaged in passing a canal boat 
through the locks. At length, pelted by a heavy shower of rain, 
we stood at the mouth of the long looked for tunnel, the rock 
bound walls of which were as black from the smoke of the engines 
as those of Pluto's dungeons. The watchman, an intelligent son 
of the Emerald Isle, whose little cabin was stored with books, 
came out and gave us the following information. 

This Black Rock Tunnel was completed in September, 1837. 
Length 1,932 feet; width 19 feet; height 17 feet. The engineers 



112 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

were Messrs. Robinson and Prim; assistant engineer, Mr. Wm. 
H. Wilson. Contractor, Mr. James Appleton. 

The depth of earth and rock over the Tunnel is 164 feet. Se- 
ven persons were killed during the construction. I am astonished 
that the rail road company does not build a comfortable house for 

Patrick , the watchman, for in the one we took shelter a 

man can scarcely turn round, and is withal very uncomfortable, 
scarcely screening him from the storm. 

Returning to Phoenixville, we ascended the mountain from which 
we had a magnificent view of the surrounding country, the canal 
and rail road, that wound along the green, fertile valley like two 
huge serpents winding along till they were lost to the eye. After 
again being lost, we fell in with two jovial gentlemen who laughed 
heartily at our ignorance, and piloted us to town by the way of the 
large iron works of Messrs. Buck & Reeves, who employ between 
two and three hundred hands. Standing on the rail road the sce- 
nery to the north, west and south is indescribably grand, sublime 
and romantically beautiful. Some views are indeed wild and 
wonderful. 

Late in the morning we left Phcenixville for Valley Forge, the 
celebrated spot on which our reflections centred, and fancy had 
arrayed in the gay, grand, gorgeous robes of romance. As we 
approached it, our impressions were grand though gloomy; sor- 
rowful though sublime. We were about to wander where the 
world-worshipped Washington once trod, and where so many 
brave men once suffered, through the storms and darkness of win- 
ter, all the horrors of poverty and privation, that they might trans- 
mit to us the blessed privileges we enjoy. Glorious men ! Great 
was the distress they endured, while spending the winter months 
amid these grand and gloomy — these sublime and solitary scenes; 
which now look as brilliant and beautiful as though no sigh of 
sorrow, no groan of anguish had ever been repeated, amid these 
romantic and renowned woods, on the silver shell of echo. 

Valley Forge is indeed a grand and gloomy; a sublime and 
solitary spot; though, to my eye, speaking paradoxically, its very 
gloomy grandeur gave it a glorious brilliance and beauty, and as- 
sociation threw around it a romance, greater than even that with 
which it was invested by its sublime scenery; its lone and lofty 
solitudes. Approaching, the eye of the traveller rests upon three 
vast bodies of sloping woodland which, in two places, are con- 
nected in the form of an isoceles triangle. To the eastward of 
this scene rises the sad and solitary hill where the ragged, half fed 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 113 

heroes of the revolution were encamped, and spent the winter in 
want and woe, which alas! the Government was too poor to alle- 
viate. The spot is surrounded by high hills, covered with dense 
woods; and if it has a grand and gloomy aspect now, what must 
it have been in the year 1777, before the hand of art had set the 
wheels of industry in motion, and had much encroached upon the 
domain of nature? We observed a cotton factory, but, as it was 
the Sabbath, it was closed. After visiting the spot where the Con- 
tinental, or rather the American army encamped, we went in pur- 
suit of that immortalized character, "the oldest inhabitant," whom 
we found, and from whom we gathered what we desired — some 
incidents on which to found a Revolutionary Tale. 

Having accomplished our object, we departed for Norristown. 
The first part of the road was wet, stony and disagreeable; but 
changed in its character as we advanced. At Norristown there is 
a very extensive bridge crosses the Schuylkill, so extensive indeed 
that, in perspective, it looked like the tunnel at Phcenixville. This 
is a pretty town, well paved, and has many fine buildings; but, as 
we did not remain more than an hour or two, we had but little 
opportunity to view it. We stopped at the excellent hotel of Mr. 
Markley, where we had a good dinner of broiled chicken, which 
disappeared instanter, as the hour was late, and we were hungry. 
At the table d'hote, we were waited on by two gay and graceful 
fds de chambre, at whom I could occasionally detect my compan- 
ion in the act of stealing a sneaking glance. In the hall, we met 
and conversed with one of the most agreeable and communica- 
tive young ladies, with whom it was our good fortune to be in- 
troduced. 

After giving our faithful horse sufficient time to refresh himself 
we left Norristown, and turned our faces towards the land of the 
Blue Hen's Chickens, dear little Delaware. In passing along the 
road, I could not keep my eyes from the rich fields, that seemed 
to groan beneath the luxuriant corn, of which an enormous crop 
will be produced this year, from the circumstance of farmers hav- 
ing planted more than usual, they having been frightened at the 
cold spring, which portended a failure and a famine. 

As we approached the Paoli, which is about twelve miles from 
West Chester, my mind dwelt upon the awful tragedy which was 
enacted there, a short time after the battle of Brandywine. The 
reader, acquainted with history, will remember, that Washington 
ordered General Wayne, with a detachment of 1,500 men, into 
the rear of the British army; and tliat they were surprised at the 
15 



114 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Paoli, at eleven o'clock at night, by General Gray, aided by some 
tories, and, before Wayne could form his men in battle array, be- 
tween fifty and sixty were massacred in cold blood. Wayne with 
his right wing sustained a fierce assault, until he could direct a 
retreat; but that cowardly attack by Gen. Gray, cost the American 
army three hundred brave men. 

Chester, aided by other counties, and the city of Philadelphia, 
purchased twenty or more acres encircling the massacre ground, 
and reared a mound, containing the bones of the butchered brave, 
on which a marble monument has been erected, surrounded by a 
brick wall. We stood, with strange feelings, on the spot where 
sleep the heroes, who Avere pinned to the earth by the bayonet on 
that dreadful night, September 20th, 1777. 

About sunset, under a gentle shower of rain, we again entered 
the quiet and beautiful town of West Chester. As we could not 
accept of Mr. Brown's polite invitation to dine with him, when 
passing through, we now stopped at the Mansion House, kept by 
him; its large airy rooms, comfortable arrangement, extensive din- 
ing and reading rooms, and spacious yard, forcibly reminded me 
of Barnum's City Hotel, Baltimore; which, the reader will recol- 
lect, was the only hotel that Dickens, the English author, eulo- 
gized, when in America. The very first man who took us by 
the hand, when we alighted, was a Blue Hen's Chicken from 
Wilmington. 

The Mansion House at West Chester is decidedly the most 
sumptuous public house I have visited for a long time, and its pro- 
prietor, Mr. Brown, the most attentive, polite and agreeable host. 
The reading room contains papers from all parts of the United 
States. A gentleman informed us, that more than three hundred 
persons, on one day, dined at the Mansion House, during the 
sitting of court; and that the house has sixty regular boarders. 
Every thing is comfortable and convenient; the waiters are atten- 
tive and polite; the table luxurious and plentiful. My associate 
was captivated by the kindness of Mr. Brown; for when at bed- 
time he complained of being unwell, that gentleman was very at- 
tentive, and seemed to evince much solicitude. We went up to 
the balcony, from whence we had a full view of the town, and of 
the country many miles around. The sun was up in the eastern 
heavens, and the scene of a smiling country, arrayed in its rich 
robe of green, was delightful. 

After breakfast, we met on the street, and conversed with the 
liberal, generous-hearled, public-spirited Mr. Everhart; who, we 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 115 

are told, has been a benefactor to the town of West Chester. By 
industry he has acquired wealth, and he uses it to good purpose. 
He has built, or had built, some of the finest houses in the town; 
and his liberal hand is in every thing which has for its object the 
improvement of the town. I have heard it said, that Mr. Everhart 
was the only person saved from the wreck of the ill-fated ship 
Albion, many years ago. His countenance is the index of the 
kindly feelings of his heart. As we went up to bid an old ac- 
quaintance farewell, at whose house we had been the evening 
previous, I for the first time noticed the Chester County Banking 
House, which I mistook for a church. 

At eight o'clock we left West Chester for Kennett Square, in 
and around which there were many tories during the Revolution. 
A mile or two from the town we got into a funeral procession, 
which must have had nearly a hundred carriages in it. The burial 
took place in the Friends burial ground, in Kennett Square. We 
stopped for dinner at the hotel of Mr. Wiley, the well known im- 
prover of the plough. A plough stands on the sign-post. The 
tavern house served for the British barracks, about the time of the 
battle of Brandywine. 

The pretty little town of Kennett Square contains about 500 
inhabitants, and is graced with water works, a thing I did not ex- 
pect to find, and speaks well for its thriving, industrious people. 
In their yards, filled with flowers, they exhibit taste. 

After dinner we left for Centreville; and while riding we disco- 
vered a snake along the road, which my associate was very anx- 
ious to get out and kill. "For shame," said I, "let the poor 
creature live, as God intended. He is in his native wilds. If he 
were to encroach upon your domicil, you would have a moral 
right to kill him; for, as Cowper says, 'a necessary act incurs no 
blame.' Every man's hand is lifted against that poor proscribed 
creature, and therefore I pity him. If you do not disturb him, he 
will not disturb you." This appeal, to one who has naturally a 
generous heart, had the desired effect; for his wish to kill the 
snake was but the impulse of a moment. His kindly feelings 
were awakened from a momentary sleep, and we rode on, leaving 
the poor denizen of the forest to enjoy life. 

We stopped at a temperance tavern near Centreville, with the 
view of getting our horse watered; and, though we desired no 
drink, we called for some Sarsaparilla, as a kind of compensation 
for watering the horse. But no hostler came. I said aloud, "our 
horse wants water;" but the lady said nothing. The horse whick- 



116 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

ered for water, and the landlord passed by him, standing alone, 
but did not pay any attention to him. We had to carry the water 
some distance ourselves, and water the horse, though we expected 
to pay a " fip " to the hostler. My companion agreed with me, that 
if all temperance houses are equally inattentive to travellers, it is 
no wonder they do not succeed. At all other taverns, an hostler 
came the moment we stopped. 

We were treated very politely at the public house of Mr. Rob- 
inson, in Centreville, where we soon after arrived. After visiting 
a lady, we returned to the hotel, where a man, on being told who 
I was, disputed my being the Milford Bard, as, he said, I was too 
young looking a man. " Why," said he, " I have read his writings 
more than twenty years ago. Indeed he can't be the man." He 
did not know that I wrote my first poetic article at ten years of 
age, at school, addressed to my little dulcinea about knee high, 
and that I have been scribbling ever since. When I look back 
upon that green spot on the waste of memory, how rapid appears 
the flight of time! Happy days, departed never to return! 

We left Centreville about four o'clock, and arrived at Wilming- 
ton before sunset, as safe and sober as we started, well pleased 
with our little tour through one of the paradises of Pennsylvania. 



t JBa^ington ffioniiniFnt, 

Lines on seeing the sunlight fall on the head of the statue of Washington, on the 
Washington Monument, Baltimore, on tlie Fourth Day of July. 

Father of Freedom, on thy brilliant brow, 
Where reason sat the monarch of the mind; 

I see heaven's glorious sunlight streaming now, 
As still thy glories shine ujion mankind. 

Father of Freedom, at thy sacred shrine 
A nation kneels, in homage to thy name; 

To catch the sjiirit of thy deeds divine, 

And send it down the tide of time to fame. 

The thunder of a thousand hills this day. 

Rolls on the Paan of thy praise afar; 
While on thy lofty brow the sun's bright ray 

Now shines, like glory's everlasting star. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 117 

A halo should for ever circle thee, 
Thou friend of Freedom and of deeds sublime; 

For had'st thou spurned thy love of liberty, 

Thou might 'st have ruled, a despot o'er this clime. 

A thousand thrones, in glittering glory, ne'er 

Could have betrayed or won thee to betray; 
Thy noble soul was never born to fear, 

A traitor's tempting or a tyrant's sway. 

In all things noble and in all divine. 

The child of glory and the heir of fame; 
Fair Baltimore hath reared a glorious shrine. 

Where thousands bow in homage to tiiy name. 



^rnipr for (Bintt, 



Look down, illustrious souls, look down, 

And say to Greece be free; 
Look from Empyrean fields, and frown 

On Turkish tyranny; 
Shake heaven's high halls with dreadful ire. 

Send thunder from the skies, 
Wrap Moslem towers in flaming fire, 

Tilf the strong demon dies. 

Great spirits of the fallen brave. 

Tread now thy classic shore. 
The sun of Greece in Freedom's grave. 

Has set to rise — no more. 
Her lamp of learning, once so bright. 

That lit a hundred hills. 
Hath long since set in endless night, 

Dark woe her bosom fills. 

Her halls, where once sweet rapture rung, 

No sounding lyre now sighs; 
But where was heard the trumpet tongue. 

Are heard but shrieks and cries; 
And there the crimson crescent waves. 

Where once the lyceum stood. 
The cross in Grecian gore still laves. 

The moon doth blush in blood. 



118 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Look down, immortal Thunderer, look 

On Homer's happy land, 
Thou who the heavens and earth hath shook. 

Preserve the brilUant band; 
And from her dungeon drag once more, 

The genius of the brave, 
Then Greece shall dig, in human gore. 

The Turkish tyrant's grave. 



€^t last ]|5atriot, 

OF THOSE WHO SIGNED THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Where are those great immortal sires, 
Who ruled the western world. 

Whose daring hands, 

With flaming brands, 
Proud usurpation hurled; 
And where are those whose deeds divine 
Live on the eternal scroll. 

Whose names shall shine 

On freedom's shrine. 
While endless ages roll. 



Illustrious souls ye dwell on high. 
In heaven's ethereal halls, 
But ne'er shall shame 
Enshroud your fame, 
Till freedom's fabric falls. 
Ye brilliant sons whose light we prize, 
Gone down the sky of time. 
Yet doth arise 
In other skies, 
To shine with light sublime. 

Soon shall the last illustrious star 
From glory sink to gloom; 

But freedom's light 

Shall gild the night 
That clouds Columbia's tomb. 
His monument shall joy impart 
To him who reads his name; 

Unbuilt by art, 

Within the heart, 
Shall live his deathless fame. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 119 

Not one ere long of all the band, 
Who in Columbia's causej 

Redeemed in fight 

The rule and right 
Of liberty and laws, 
Will here remain; but long enrolled 
On Fame's pure page shall stand. 

Bright to behold, 

In burnished gold, 
The names of Freedom's band. 

Of all the sages none remain 
But Patriot Carroll) he, 

Weighed down by time, 

'Mid scenes sublime, 
Stands like an aged tree; 
Where Franklin sleeps, and Washington 
Lies in his country's tomb, 

He soon must rest 

By millions blest, 
A sad tho' srlorious doom. 



(D (Btin IriiJf! 



Erin! thou queen of the ocean, arise, 
Seize the lightnings that 'lumine the vault of the skies, 
Grasp the weapons of war, for thy valor is known. 
And the tyrant shall tremble on Albion's throne. 

Go forth like a flame, in the forest afar, 
Sound the trump of thy triumph from liberty's car, 
Rend the chains of oppression — be monarchy hurled, 
And thy glory shall gladden the gloom of the world. 

Th' avalanche of the Alps shall not strike more edarma 
To dread monarchy's monsters, than Ireland's arms; 
An eruption of ^tna less dread shall impart. 
Than the valor of Erin, best vein of her heart. 

How long shall the sceptre of slavery wave 

O'er the wish of the world, and the blades of the brave? 

How long shall the crown and the crosier unite, 

To extinguish the lamp of thy liberty's light? 



120 -^RITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

How long shall the weapons thy warriors wore, 
Cease to spread the red gush of tyrannical gore ? 
How long shall the grave of thy glory be viewed, 
Where the tomb of the tyrant should glitter with blood? 

O Erin ! arise, in the strength of thy might. 

Go forth in thy pride to the field of the fight: 

Let the wrath of thy wrongs nerve the arm of the brave, 

And the march of the monarch shall be to the grave. 

Bid the angel of death visit Erin once more, 
Wake thy engines of thunder on every shore. 
Wrap the ranks of oppression in floods of tliy fire. 
And the doom of the despot the world shall admire. 

Then shall freedom walk forth in thy gardens again. 
And the voice of her victory sound o'er the main; 
Then millions unborn shall rejoice in the cause. 
That gave Ireland liberty — liberty laws. 

O hasten the hour when the flame shall retire, 
And the breast of the brave of all Europe shall fire; 
When each tyrant shall fall, and when tyranny hurled, 
The banner of freedom shall wave o'er the world. 



Ciipih in (BxWt. 

YooNG Cupid roved upon the strand. 

In tenderness and tears; 
Far from his love and native land, 

And all that life endears. 



He stood upon the sounding shore, 

And saw the ship depart; 
He turned his eye to home once more, 

While sorrow pierced his heart. 

Then as on Hope's sweet anchor nigh, 
He leaned, with joy sincere. 

He breathed to sorrow one last sigh, 
And dashed away a tear. 



ONO-KEO-CO, 



O R 



t §aitMi 0f t\t ^raii!&gtokt. 



" Let them blast me now I 
I stir not— tremble not! these rocky shores 
Whose date o'erawes tradition, gird the home 
Of a great race of kings, along whose line 
The eager mind lives aching, through the darkness 
Of ages else unstoried, till its shapes 
Of armed sovereigns spread to godlike port, 
And frowning in the uncertain dawn of time. 
Strike awe, as powers who ruled an elder world. 
In mute obedience." — Tragedy of Ion. 



'T was at that eventful period of the world when, 
[driven by oppression, the pilgrims of Europe 
were seeking a home in the mighty wildernesa 
of the western world, that this story commences. 
|I say eventful, for never since the foundation of 
'the world, has there been a period so eventful as 
that in which this continent was discovered and 
settled, whether we view it in respect to com- 
merce, science, invention, or general discovery. 
The dark days of Gothic and Vandal barbarity 
were passing away, and the world was emerging 
from the gloom that was produced by their long 
reign of tyranny and oppression, during which 
the chains of despotism had rattled on the mind, 
as well as the limbs of liberty. The same cen- 
tury that gave this mighty continent to civilized 
men, also gave to the world the great and glorious art of printing, 
the fountain of light, the flood-gate of knowledge, at which Soc- 
rates, Plato, and all the glorious philosophers of Greece, would 
stand astonished, could they rise from the tombs of oriental 
genius. 
16 




122 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

The discovery of this continent produced a great jubilee in the 
family of nations, for thereby was brought to light a nation of red 
men, long lost, and the language of prophecy was fulfilled — " I will 
give thee the Heathen for an inheritance," and "the desert shall 
blossom like the rose." The sons of civilization have proven too 
strong for the benighted wanderers of the wilderness; the forest 
has disappeared before the axe of the pioneer; cities have sprung 
up, as if by magic, on the banks of rivers, and the white sails of 
commerce have banished the bark canoes of the Indians. Truly 
has the desert blossomed like the rose. 

But the reader must be informed that this story does not com- 
mence at the era of the discovery of this country, but during the 
first settlement of the state of Delaware. It begins at a time 
when not only the forest of Delaware echoed the war-whoop and 
yell, but when the whole country swarmed with the dusky forms 
of the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. This country then 
was a great Indian Empire; but where now are the immense 
hosts that then assembled in battle array? Where are the myriads 
that made the mighty swamps of Sussex, and the banks of the 
Brandywine, echo the war-whoop ? Where are they, who gathered 
at the council fire, and mingled in the war dance? Ay, where are 
the tall, straight, graceful warriors, who wooed their dusky damsels 
in the beautiful bowers of the rock embattled Brandywine? They 
are gone like the leaves that fell upon its swift waters. The tide 
of civilization has rolled over them, and a remnant only remains of 
the once proud and numerous tribe of the Delawaras. 

It was on a dreary day, in the month of December, that a party 
of emigrants landed at Lewistown, in the Colony of Delaware, 
then called Hoarkill, and prepared to strike into the wilderness, to 
rear a home far away from the land that contained the ashes of 
their ancestors, and all the fond, endearing recollections of child- 
hood. Heroic hearts were theirs, thus to go forth into a wild 
wilderness, among a fierce and warlike people, to whom the mer- 
ciful precepts of the Gospel had never been taught, but who were 
prone by nature to revenge the slightest wrong, whether real or 
imaginary. 

Among that band of adventurers were English, Dutch and 
Swedes, who from difierent vessels, had landed at Lewistown, as 
a starting point. Nicholas Brabant was chosen the leader, who, 
on account of his fearless and determined spirit, acquired the ap- 
pellation of Old Nick. His wife was a beautiful English woman, 
who had acquired from him a daring, fearless spirit. She had be- 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 123 

longed to a high and distinguished family in England, and had 
been educated in all the accomplishments, as well as the solid 
acquirements of that age. She had by some unaccountable 
magic, like that possessed by Othello, fallen in love with Nick, 
who was then her father's footman, and having eloped with him, 
was repudiated or disowned. With that devotion which belongs 
to woman, she resolved to share his fortune, whatever it might be; 
and when, by persecution, he made up his mind to fly from Eng- 
land, she resolved to forsake her native land and those who had 
forsaken Aer, and go with him to the wilds of America, to dwell 
among the dark browed children of the forest. 

Thrown by a storm on Cape Henlopen, they landed, and Nick 
made up his mind to try the dangers of the deep no further, but to 
push immediately into the forests, and become the lord of a little 
empire. To this all the emigrants then at Lewistown, agreed, and 
the whole party, accordingly, set out on their journey into the 
dense woods that then lined the shores of the Delaware, beset by 
many difficulties and dangers. 

Save the beautiful and accomplished wife of Nicholas Brabant, 
there was none of the party closely connected with him but one, 
and that was one of the most lovely children that ever blest a 
father's heart. Lelia, the little daughter, was extremely beautiful, 
the very transcript of the mother; and when I describe the one, 
you have the exact portrait of the other. Lelia had arrived at that 
most interesting and attractive period in childhood, when she was 
just beginning to prattle and run about, and it was the joy of the 
father, when the party stopped for refreshment, to amuse himself 
with his child, as she ran about the forest, or climbed his knee, 

"To slyly steal a kiss." 

Her features were of the Grecian mould; her nose in nearly a 
straight line from the forehead ; her lips full and red ; a high broad 
forehead; her chin beautifully moulded; her complexion waxy and 
rosy; her face oval: her teeth small, even and white, and her au- 
burn hair falling, in clustering curls, like grapes of gold on her 
neck and bosom, that were smooth as marble and white as alabaster. 
With this varying description of her beauty, I may add, that 
her form was slender and graceful, but her eye — heavens! no lan- 
guage is adequate to its delineation — the painter's pencil would 
fail to portray it! Like that of her mother, it was hazel, and had 
in it an expression of voluptuous softness, a melancholy glance, a 



124 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

melting tenderness, a/e ne scais quoi, that is irresistibly touching 
to the beholder. 

Nicholas devotedly loved his wife; not only as other men do, 
for the return of her affection, but he loved her in gratitude, that 
she had over-stepped the barriers of aristocratic life, and stooped 
to the humble station of a footman. His child, Lelia, he abso- 
lutely worshipped. She was the little angel of his idolatry, and 
never did a Hindoo bow with more devotion to Vishnu, than did 
he to Lelia. It was the intention of Mrs. Brabant to educate her 
child herself, as indeed she would be likely to find no other 
teacher in the wilds of Delaware. 

The party, headed by Brabant, moved onward, through the 
forests along the Delaware Bay, which have disappeared before 
the axe, and where cultivated fields are now seen. None of the 
party were accustomed to such scenes, and, of course, knew not 
the many dangers that surrounded them. 

Wearied with their long days march, in the midst of a snow 
storm, they halted on the borders of a swamp; built their fires, 
and commenced preparing their frugal meal. That having been 
prepared and despatched, /hey made arrangements for sleep, and, 
after a time, all were snugly stretched for repose. The distant 
howling of wild beasts for a considerable time kept them awake, 
but at length finding that they came no nearer, one after another 
fell away into the arms of Morpheus, notwithstanding the fact, that 
the cold, cheerless blast was roaring among the pines with a mel- 
ancholy sound, and the snow was falling fast around them. 

Just as the day was about to dawn, when the flames of their 
fires no longer glared on the gloom of the surrounding forest, 
Nicholas was awakened by a grappling, as if some person were 
feeling and endeavoring to awaken him. He partly threw off the 
bed-clothes or blankets, with which he had enveloped his head, 
and merciful Heaven! he was greeted by the gaze of a pair of the 
most awful flaming red eyes he had ever beheld. A large, black, 
shaggy, demon-like creature, had succeeded in getting his paws 
around the body of his darling child, and was raising her so gently 
from her resting place, that she had not been awakened. But at 
this moment Mrs. Brabant awoke, and seeing her child in the 
arms of an enormous bear, she gave one wild shriek that rung in 
many an echo through the gloomy forest. Neither the father or 
mother had ever seen a bear, and it appeared as a demon of the 
wilderness, in the act of carrying off their idolized daughter. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 125 

It is well known that the bear, like the boa constrictor, destroys 
its prey by hugging or squeezing until life becomes extinct; but, 
ere the ferocious animal had time to do this, the affrighted, though 
fearless father, leaped to his feet, and grappled with the monster. 
His gun was his first thought, but then he might shoot his child, 
for the bear pertinaciously refused to give up his hold, until Nick 
grappled with him, and they together rolled down the hill. At 
length, having relinquished his hold upon the child, the bear rose 
up with him, until he stood upon his hind legs, in which position 
the battle continued. Bruin, being one of the largest of the 
species, was, when erect, as tall as his antagonist, and much 
larger in the body. Before the sleepers had arisen, the bear would 
have overpowered Nick, had not his wife ran to his assistance 
with two knives, the one of which she gave to her husband, while 
with the other she stabbed the animal in the breast. This, at first, 
only rendered him more furious, and he must have inevitably 
proved the victor, had she not dealt him a well aimed blow, just 
behind the fore leg, which reached his heart, and he fell dead at 
their feet. 

"You have saved my life, my dear wife," exclaimed Brabant, as 
he clasped her to his bloody bosom. 

"And you have saved that of our darling child," returned she. 
"But oh! see, you are wounded — the blood is pouring from your 
bosom. Oh! mercy, you are wounded!" 

Nick was indeed wounded. The claws of the animal had severed 
a small blood vessel, but his wife soon staunched it, and they all 
went to work to skin the bear, and make a feast of the flesh. 

After the feast, they journeyed on through the immense swamps 
and forests of Sussex, occasionally encountering an Indian 
hunter, but nothing occurred, until night, worthy of record. At 
night they encamped near the borders of another great swamp, in 
which they lost one of the stoutest and most useful of the party. 
In search of some long cedar poles, he wandered into the swamp 
alone, until he lost his reckoning, and night setting in, he was 
unable to find his way out. In the darkness of the night they 
could hear his cries, but could not go to him, or render him any 
assistance, for had they gone into the swamp they would have 
been lost, so thick was the darkness, and so interminable the 
swamp. They heard his cries the greater part of the night; but, 
as morning approached, his voice became fainter and fainter, until 
it ceased. Had he travelled but in one direction, he might have 



126 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

found his way out, by his tracks in the snow; but he had gone in 
so many directions, that he was bewildered. 

The next day they found him dead at the foot of a tree, round 
which he had ran to keep himself warm, but the weather being 
very cold, he perished before the morning dawned. 

The next day they arrived at a spot where they resolved to 
settle, on account of there being a number of civilized people 
there, who had just arrived, and who would stand as a bulwark 
against the Indians. 

Nick built him a cabin, and his example was followed by the 
other men of the party. Mrs. Brabant now devoted herself to the 
education of her daughter, and the Indians excited by curiosity, 
came to see her teach her child. But they soon became afraid of 
her, and declared her to be a witch, she having amused them by 
reading and writing. She wrote upon a piece of paper, what the 
Indians, through an interpeter, told her, and then bade them take 
it to her husband, who was in the woods, and he would know 
what they had said. Upon his taking the paper and reading aloud 
their thoughts, they fell down, yelled, and declared her to be a 
witch. They could not conceive how the piece of paper could 
tell to him what they had thought and said. From that time they 
became fearful of her, and shunned her, if she approached them. 

But although her immediate neighbors shunned her, the story of 
her supernatural powers spread through the country, and called 
vast numbers of the denizens of the forest to her cabin. With the 
minutest curiosity, yet with apparent stoic indifference, they ex- 
amined her pen and paper, for they conceived that there must be 
some species of magic in them, while, at the same time, they be- 
lieved that she was endowed by the Great Spirit with supernatural 
powers, thus to express and convey on paper their own thoughts 
to a distant person. 

Wawtawbrand, a brave young Chief, came from what is called 
Mispillion Neck, near where Milford now stands, attended by a 
host of warriors, to witness the wonderful incantations of the pale 
faced squaw, sent by the Great Spirit to enlighten the Indians. 
Had not this notion taken possession of their minds, the life of 
Mrs. Brabant would have been in danger, for they would have de- 
stroyed her as a witch. 

Wawtawbrand, who determined that there should be no collu- 
sion, despatched some Indians, with Nick, to a distance in the 
woods, where he could not possibly hear what was said, and then 
communicated his thoughts to Mrs. Brabant, who wrote them on 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 127 

a paper. This paper he cautiously took into his own hands, evi- 
dently betraying a superstitious dread of it. Attended by num- 
bers, who were as curious as he, he repaired to Nicholas, who had 
not moved from his station in the woods. With a calm counte- 
nance, yet with a mind full of wonder, he handed the mysterious 
oracular paper to Nick, who immediately read aloud the thoughts 
of Wawtawbrand, which thoughts were, that the Great Spirit 
would never delegate such powers to mortal man, and that there 
must be some imposition in the matter; but that if Nick could 
then tell what he had said to his wife, he would believe there was 
no cheat. 

Though the Indians seldom betray any expression of astonish- 
ment when witnessing any exhibition calculated to excite wonder 
in the mind, he could not hide his emotions, and his followers fell 
down in adoration before him and his wife. 

When Wawtawbrand presented the paper to Brabant, he placed 
his ear near it to hear what it said; but finding that it did not 
speak, he was still more puzzled. He could not conceive how 
the little crooked marks, the letters, could convey to Nick a 
knowledge of his thoughts. Still more were they astonished, 
when they were told that little Lelia could be taught to do the 
same. 

Mrs. Brabant called the Indians around her, and asked them if 
they wished to see themselves. On being answered in the affir- 
mative, she produced a mirror, or looking glass, and placed it 
before the Chief first. Every motion he made was repeated by the 
reflection, or by the other Wawtawbrand, as he called it. Many 
of the warriors, who feared not death on (he battle field, trembled 
with a superstitious terror as they gazed upon their reflected per- 
sons, for they could not account for it in any other way than by 
ascribing it to the power of the Great Spirit. 

By these means, Brabant and his wife acquired an ascendency 
over the Indians. They believed them to be inspired with the 
power of the Great Spirit, and feared to oflTend them. They did 
not feel thus towards the rest of the party, for it was not long 
before one was murdered, and the threat was made to exterminate 
the whole number, save Brabant and his family. 

The Indians being numerous, this threat would have been car- 
ried into execution, but for an ingenious subterfuge. A vessel, 
from Amsterdam, had been stranded on the shore of the Delaware 
Bay, on board of which was a cannon, an eighteen pounder, with 



128 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

a vast quantity of powder and shot, intended for the other colo- 
nists further up. 

At this time a wanderer came into the settlement, who imme- 
diately suggested the idea of bringing the gun on shore, by means 
of which they could keep the Indians in awe and subjection. 
This man, who gave the name of Lander, was recognized by some 
of the Indians, who had seen him on the Brandywine, and they 
vowed vengeance against him for having killed, as they alleged, 
one of their tribe. 

Lander called himself a Swede, though he looked more like a 
half blooded Indian. With assistance, after incredible toil. Lander 
managed to get the gun on shore, and, when vast numbers of In- 
dians assembled around it, he told them it was the Great Spirit, 
and would speak whenever the Indians did anything wrong- 
It was not long before another of the party was murdered, but 
it could not be discovered who did the deed. The cannon was 
loaded and fired, to prove that they had done wrong. At the 
thundering sound, they yelled and fell down before it, owning that 
it must be the Great Spirit, for nothing human could speak so 
loud. 

They then charged the cannon with shot, and bade them take 
hold of the rope, in front of the gun, and that it would punish the 
guilty. The fatal match was applied; a tremendous roar rolled 
along the shore and reverberated through the forest, while numbers 
fell bleeding and writhing in death agonies. 

By this means great numbers were slaughtered, and so great 
was their superstitious terror, that they feared to disobey the order 
to take hold of the rope, being assured that the Great Spirit would 
punish none but the guilty. Those whom Lander and the colo- 
nists dreaded most, were placed near the cannon, that they might 
certainly be blown to atoms. Those who were at the further end 
of the rope and were not killed, were pronounced good Indians 
whom the Great Spirit loved. 

That part of Sussex County, where the poor Indians were thus 
exterminated, is now called Slaughter JVeck, in memory of the 
event which I have narrated. The reader is assured that this part 
of my story is not fabulous, but is a part of the unwritten history 
of Delaware which has been handed down by tradition, as Strabo 
informs us the history of the creation was, by a Chaldean Shep- 
herd. I have wandered in the woods of Slaughter Neck, which 
lies not many miles below Milford, and is bounded by the Dela- 
ware Bay on the east; I have noticed some memorials of Indian 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 129 

life, and have stood upon the spot where the children of the forest 
fell down and worshipped the cannon. 

We are informed by tradition that had it not been by such su- 
perstitious influences, the Indians would have destroyed every 
settlement the pale faces made. 

Nicholas Brabant was, in the meantime, clearing the forest, and 
making fences around his farm. His wife was forgetting the pol- 
ished circles of society, in which she had shone in England, while 
engaged in the education of her daughter, who was growing up 
surpassingly beautiful. She was indeed a sylph; her cheeks 
bloomed with the roses of health, while at the same time she was 
delicate and graceful. She was the Diana of the woods, and 
many a strippling warrior looked upon her with greedy eyes, while 
in her girlhood, but she deigned not to notice them. While old 
Nick was laying the foundation of wealth, he rejoiced in the pos- 
session of such a daughter, his only child, save an illegitimate son 
in England. 

But, alas! how mutable is all human happiness! In ihe mo- 
ment in which we may promise ourselves years of ecstatic bliss, 
the irrevocable blow of sorrow may come, 

"Lander," said Nick one day, when he entered his cabin weary 
with toil, " why in the world do you not marry and become a hap- 
pier man?" 

"But would it increase my happiness?" enquired Lander. 

"0, vastly. In the first place, you would have those with you 
who would sympathize in your joys and sorrows. In the second 
place, you would have a motive for exertion and toil, and, when 
weary, would have the satisfaction of knowing that you were con- 
tributing to the happiness of those who are dearer than life. In 
the third place, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that 
you would live, when dead, in the existence of your children, and 
not become extinct, as the last of your race, like a poor old com- 
fortless bachelor." 

"True, Nick, but my happiness is not so easily destroyed as 
yours. I stand alone, and nothing extraneous can render me mis- 
erable, while the death of your wife or child may blast you." 

"That is very true; but, on the contrary, my happiness is ex- 
quisite. The very thought, that I am now making a paradise for 
those in whom I shall live hereafter cheers me amazingly, while I 
am toiling from day to day. You have no motive but bare self, 
and labor becomes irksome." 



17 



130 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

At this moment Mrs. Brabant rushed into the cabin, wringing 
her hands, and exclaiming in piteous accents, 

"Oh God! she is lost!— lost!— lost! Fly, oh fly! " 

"What is the matter, for Heaven's sake?" enquired Nick, as he 
leaped from his seat and seized his gun. 

"Our daughter, oh! our daughter, poor Lelia is gone — gone — 
gone! I saw an Indian seize her, and bear her away." 

As Nick rushed from the cabin, followed by Lander, Mrs. Bra- 
bant swooned, and fell upon the floor. 

"See how easily your happiness can be destroyed," said Lan- 
der, but Nick heard him not, so desperate was he at the loss of 
his daughter. His imploring cries and imprecations were pitiable, 
while the woods wrung with the name of Lelia. Like one dis- 
tracted, he ran first one way and then in another direction ; but 
the stalwart Indian, with Lelia in his arms, was gone. He stopped ; 
he raved; and rent his garments: and then falling on the ground, 
gave vent to a burst of grief that the distant woods echoed back. 

When the sudden deluge of distress had been thrown from his 
heart by a child like gush of tears, he returned to his cabin, to 
prepare for pursuit. Mrs. Brabant had recovered from her swoon, 
and was the very impersonation of despair. She was wringing 
her hands in agony, and crying, 

"Oh! Lelia, my child! my child! Shall I ever again behold 
my poor Lelia, my darling daughter. 

Lander appeared to sympathize deeply in their distress, and 
offered to accompany Nick, in the pursuit of the fugitive, who 
had carried off his daughter. After having armed himself, he de- 
parted, attended by Lander, and a few intrepid warriors, who 
were the followers of Lander, and who had come with him into 
the settlement. 

As the day declined, Mrs. Brabant became anxious for the return 
of her husband, and wandered far through the forest in the hope 
of meeting him, and of beholding her beautiful Lelia. It was at 
that interesting period of the year, when Autumn clothes the forest 
in all the beautiful hues of the rainbow; and he who, even at the 
present day, has not travelled through the immense swamps of 
Sussex in October and November, has never witnessed nature 
arrayed in her most gaudy attire. Amid those vast swamps are 
trees of almost every species, the leaves of which, when touched 
by frost, change from their original color, to golden, azure, purple, 
crimson, and indeed all the hues refracted by the prism. The eye 
is dazzled by their magnificent dyes, amid which, contrasting 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 131 

beautifully with the purple of the persimmon, and the crimson and 
golden tints of other trees, rises, in stately grandeur, the tall pine 
and cedar, with their eternal green. Gorgeous and glorious beyond 
description, do the swamps of Sussex appear in Autumn. 

But the sublimity of nature had now no charms for her whose 
mind, refined in the schools of England, was peculiarly adapted to 
the enjoyment of all that was beautiful, or grand, or glorious. 
Grief paralyzed her powers of perception and appreciation, and 
obliterated, for the time, her taste for the magnificent and mighty 
works of the Deity. When grief takes possession of the mind, it 
can dwell with composure only on its sorrows. 

The splendid scenery around her, the gorgeous hues of the glo- 
rious landscape, had no charms for her now, and she returned to 
her cabin dejected and disconsolate. The soul of her soul was 
gone, and imagination was busy in picturing the fate that awaited 
her Lelia. Oh! ye who are the parents of a beautiful darling 
daughter, just about to burst into the bloom and beauty of woman- 
hood; ye alone can fancy; ye alone can appreciate, the agonizing, 
the heart rending feelings and thoughts of the bereaved father and 
mother. Fancy to yourselves that your daughter, beautiful as 
Venus and lovely as Hebe, is carried suddenly away from your 
habitation, without a moment's warning, by an Indian — fancy that 
you may never behold her again — fancy her fate in the future, and 
you may, in some degree, realize the horrors, the grief, the agony, 
the suspense, into which the parents of Lelia were thrown. 

It was the hour of Indian devotion. The sun, in all his brilliant 
glory, was just sinking behind the vast woodlands in the West, 
throwing his last lingering rays over the golden and crimson leaves 
of the forest, which in the distance glowed like a mighty flood of 
flame, and the Indians, on their knees, with their faces to the set- 
ting sun, were offering up their orisons to the Great Spirit But she 
heeded them not. She retired to the solitude of her own cabin, 
and gave up her soul to despair and unavailing grief. All night 
did she listen for the footsteps of her returning husband, but he 
came not. When the morning blast stirred the leaves of the 
forest, she started up, imagining she heard the voices of her be- 
loved husband, and the beautiful Lelia, but, alas! they came not. 

Aurora, "fair Goddess of the morn," unbarred the golden gates 
of day, and extinguished the twinkling lamps that hung in the 
great hall of heaven; and Sol appeared in his brilliant chariot, to 
drive round the world asain ; but neither Brabant nor his followers 



132 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

returned. The day wore away, and the next morning came, and 
still they returned not. 

"Oh! God of Heaven," she exclaimed in the fervent language 
of grief, "is it not enough to lose my darling child, but must I 
also be deprived of my husband, and be left desolate and alone ! 
Oh God ! avert the last, if I am irrevocably doomed to lose my 
daughter!" 

Thus did she continue to exclaim, and wring her hands in pa- 
roxysms of woe, until that sleep, to which grief is conducive, over- 
powered her, and stretched on a buffalo hide, she wandered nine 
hours in the realms of Morpheus, her mind filled with hideous 
dreams of the murder of her husband, and the far worse fate of her 
daughter. She beheld her Lelia struggling in the arms of a young 
Indian warrior; stretching her arms in despair, and imploring help; 
and starting from her sleep, she wept and slept again. Anon the 
bug-bears of the brain came again, and she saw her husband fight- 
ing for her child — she saw him grapple with the Indian, whose 
scalping knife glittered in her gaze — a moment more, and she 
saw it plunged to his heart, and saw the smoking gore as it gushed 
from the wound. She beheld his expiring struggles, and his dying 
groans rung on her ears. Starting, with a wild shriek of anguish, 
she awoke. 

Great indeed, as the reader may suppose, was the grief of Mrs. 
Brabant at the loss of her husband and daughter. She knew not 
whether they had been murdered or carried into captivity, and her 
fancy was busy in picturing a thousand horrors. She resolved, 
however, to go in pursuit of her husband, and to find him or perish 
in the attempt. With this view, she gathered all she had of value, 
and wrapping herself in skins, which the Indians had a particular 
art in dressing, she dashed into the interminable forest, then con- 
sisting of gigantic trees that had braved the storms of centuries, 
and was soon lost in its gloom. 

It is necessary to inform the reader that the Indians, who occu- 
pied the lower part of the State of Delaware, were called the 
Nanticoke Tribe, a branch of the great Lenni Lenape, afterwards 
called the Delaware Tribe, in honor of Lord De La War, from 
whom the State derives its name. Many great tribes sprang from 
the Lenni Lenapes, which signifies the origmal people, and which 
was divided into three tribes, the Turkey, Turtle, and the Monsey 
or Wolf. Their possessions extended from the Potomac to the 
Hudson river, and though now dwindled to a handful, they at one 
time became so numerous that they gave origin to between thirty 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 133 

and forty tribes. Though these three tribes were subdivided into 
a great number of tribes, which had their separate chiefs, they 
always acted as one people in great emergencies. The Dela- 
ware Bay was the centre of their possessions. Tradition informs 
us, that the Lenni Lenape, or Delaware Tribe, emigrated with 
the Five Nations from beyond the Mississippi, and that they 
expelled the original inhabitants of this part of the country. 

Poor children of the forest! They are gone, as if their feet 
had never trodden where our towns and farm houses now stand. 
We are informed that the last of the Nanticoke Indians left Dela- 
ware, from near the town of Laurel, Sussex county, about the 
year 1748. I have seen the spot, near that town, where a vast 
number of Indian bones were disinterred, there having been a 
graveyard there. 

No one knew whether Mrs. Brabant had gone to Hoarkill, now 
called Lewistown, or whether she had gone North, among the 
Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, who were numerous along 
the Brandywine. 

We shall now return to the beautiful Lelia Brabant, who had 
been carried off at the instigation of Lander, who intended to 
make her his own captive, he having fallen in love with her peer- 
less charms. But the Indian, who had been employed by the 
Bandit, Lander, took another direction with the lovely captive, 
and instead of conveying her to the home of the Canai Indians, 
on the Susquehanna, he carried her to the Lenni Lenape, whom 
we shall hereafter call the Delaware Indians, well knowing that 
the present of so beautiful a captive would win him many favors. 
Nor was he deceived. The chief, though an old man, was enrap- 
tured with her charms, and the great warrior, statesman and mo- 
ralist, the great and good Tamenend,.was so delighted to behold 
her, that he begged the honor of giving her a name, which was 
granted, it being customary when a captive was brought in, to 
give an Indian name. She was called, by the good Tamenend, 
Ono-keo-co, the Flowei- of the Forest ; and the chief, whose name 
was Kankinaw, ordered a great feast to celebrate the occasion. 

Lelia, whom we shall now call Ono-keo-co, plead with prayers 
and tears to be restored to her parents, from whom she had been 
rudely torn; but the good Tamenend used all the powers of 
eloquence, added to the kindness of the chief, to wean her from 
her grief; but time, that great healer of the bleeding heart, could 
alone dry her tears, and restore her to composure. 



134 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

The day for the feast arrived, and Ono-keo-co was arrayed in 
gorgeous robes, decked and adorned with all the gaudy trappings 
that the chief could purchase of the pale faces, a settlement of 
whom had been made on the Christiana. Her symmetrical form 
was encased in a short frock of gray embroidered stuff, and large 
pantalets of silk, somewhat a la Turque, the bottoms of which 
were adorned with rich beads and ribbands. Her small delicate 
feet were encased with beautiful moccasins, made of skins, and 
decked with beads, in the forms of flowers; while her beautiful 
head, which was covered with clustering curls, was brilliant with 
ornaments, from which the most beautiful feathers rose, and 
drooped gracefully over her finely moulded forehead. She looked 
indeed like a princess, and the Indians, in their enthusiasm, danced 
round her, and gave way to the most extravagant and fantastic 
expressions of joy. Never had they beheld so lovely a being, and 
the young squaws felt abashed at her beauty, and jealous of the 
power of her charms, for they saw the young and most handsome 
warriors gather around her in admiration. First one would ap- 
proach and touch her, and then another, and then burst into 
screams of delight, while they fell and rolled upon the ground. 
The joy of an Indian must be great, thus to ba thrown into ecsta- 
sies; for he is grave, even to sadness, in his usual deportment. 

The village, in which Kankinaw, the chief, resided, was about a 
mile up the Brandy wine; but the feast was to be celebrated at a 
spot, a little below where the Brandywine bridge now stands, then 
covered with whortleberry bushes. Many of the pale faces left 
their settlement on the Christiana to see the pageant, which they 
knew would be a gaudy one, from the great number of trinkets 
and gay stuffs which the Indians had bought of them. 

The sun was just rising in all his dazzling glory over the vast 
woods of Jersey, when the hollow sound of the drum, an instru- 
ment used by the Indians, was heard far up the Brandywine; and, 
as the pageant approached nearer, the mingled sounds of voices 
were heard faintly. The Brandywine at that season was swollen, 
and the tide came down with a rapid sweep. It was not long 
before the splendid panorama burst, in dazzling beauty, on the 
eyes of the beholders. Not even Cleopatra came in greater pomp 
down the river Cydnus to meet Mark Antony, than did Ono-keo-co 
in the foremost canoe, attended by Kankinaw and the great Tam- 
enend. The pageant consisted of one hundred canoes, beautifully 
built of bark, the different parts of which were dyed of different 
brilliant colors, and lined with skins, the fur of which was of the 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 135 

most dazzling white. They came in one unbroken line, single file, 
as Indians always march when going to battle. The sight was bril- 
liant and beautiful, as they swept gracefully down the Brandywine, 
the Indians dressed in different fantastic costumes, as though they 
were going to a masquerade. Every paddle in the long line moved 
at the same moment, and all struck the water at the same time. In 
the front canoe stood the beautiful Ono-keo-co, Kankinaw sup- 
porting her on the right, and the great statesman and warrior, 
Tamenend, on the left. The woods, on both sides of the Brandy- 
wine, were filled with gazing Indians, who, at every pause in the 
song sung by the party, raised a shout, for it is a matter of strict 
etiquette with them never to interrupt those who are speaking or 
singing. 

When the long line of canoes arrived at the landing place, they 
all came on shore to spend the day in feasting and joy. Ono- 
keo-co was conducted to a kind of throne and bovver, made of 
green branches and covered with wild flowers. The eyes of the 
young warriors followed her wherever she moved, and the hearts 
of the young squaws throbbed with envy and jealousy. The whole 
party were seated in a circle, the centre of which was the throne 
of Ono-keo-co; and the wise, the amiable Tamenend, whose 
memory to this day is sacred among the Delaware and other tribes, 
commenced an address to Mannitto, the Great Spirit, thanking 
him for the gift of an angel (Ono-keo-co,) and imploring Him 
that they might spend the day in peace and joy, and return better 
and happier than they came. 

Every eye was fixed upon the sage while he spoke, and the 
most profound silence prevailed until he concluded. Then com- 
menced the dance around Ono-keo-co, whose young heart almost 
forgot the poignancy of her griefs in the adoration that was paid 
her. One of the old squaws sat on the outside of the circle, 
keeping up a continual thumming on a kind of drum, the only 
instrument of music used by the Indians in their dances. The 
white people of the Christiana settlement, were pleased, as they 
gazed on the fantastic costumes of the Delawares, whose faces 
were painted in the most grotesque and, to them, comical manner, 
though to the Indians such painting was the very acme of beauty. 

The face, and cheeks of Ono-keo-co needed no such adornment, 
for her cheeks and lips rivalled the rose, and her complexion 
looked, in its transparent softness, like wax which has been puri- 
fied and bleached to the greatest degree. The old chief, Kan- 
kinaw, whose face was painted in stripes of red and blue, with 



136 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

here and there a spot of green, was highly delighted during the 
dance, and frequently ran to embrace Ono-keo-co, on whom he 
bestowed the endearing epithet of daughter. 

The eye of the not less shrewd than amiable Tamenend de- 
tected in the conduct of one of the chief's sons, a young warrior 
of great promise, a newly awakened passion for the beautiful, the 
idolized Ono-keo-co. His name was Neomock, in pronouncing 
which the emphasis is laid upon the third letter, o. He sat aloof 
from the joyous assemblage, moody and silent, with his eye ever 
and anon rivited on the angelic face of Ono-keo-co, while an oc- 
casional sigh broke from his manly bosom. Though the lovely 
object of his adoration had been but a short time among the tribe, 
yet he had reason to believe that his brother, Photobrand, had 
conceived a passion for her, and it was on this account that he 
sighed, for his brother was a brave daring young warrior, impet- 
uous in his character and headstrong in his disposition, yet into 
whose soul the sage, Tamenend, had instilled the highest, holiest 
principles of honor, and the nicest sense of justice. Gay, viva- 
cious and talkative, the passion of love did not influence him, as 
it did his brother. In the heart of Neomock it swallowed up 
every other feeling, rendering him thoughtful, abstracted and 
moody; while it seemed, as it softened the heart of Photobrand, 
to give him new life, and make him in love with everything but a 
rival, and that he never had. 

While the party were spending the day with feasting and merri- 
ment, Neomock sat smoking his calmut in silence, thinking 
moodily of the new passion awakened in his heart, and shuddering 
at the fancied consequences that might follow a rivalry in the 
affections of the beautiful Ono-keo-co. He knew that if his sur- 
mises were true, that if Photobrand had formed a devoted attach- 
ment he would never relinquish the object of his love but with 
his life. Jealousy is the very shadow of love, and the one is a 
proof of the existence, as well as the degree, of the other, and 
hence Neomock ardently hoped his belief that his brother loved 
her, was but the phantom of jealousy conjured up in his own 
mind. 

While he thus sat gazing upon the beautiful creature, whose 
power over him was increasing every hour, he beheld Photobrand 
approach Ono-keo-co, to take her small white hand in his, and 
with all the pomp and pride of a chief, lead her to the dance. 
The fires of hell that moment burnt upon the altar of his heart. 
He never before had such feelings. His dark, scowling, though 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 137 

handsome eye, flashed with the flame of jealousy, and the strong 
warrior, who had never quailed in the battle-field, trembled. He 
arose, rapidly paced the ground, while he endeavored to avert 
his eyes, but in vain, for they were drawn to the dancers with a 
mysterious spell, as great as that which impels the bird to the ser- 
pent, or the needle to the magnet. The good Tamenend, though 
not seeming to do so, watched him, as the power of contending 
passions rent his soul. He saw that his heart was writhing in 
agony, for the lightning of his stormy soul gleamed fearfully on 
his face, and Tamenend, who possessed so great a knowledge of 
human nature that the Indians believed him to be inspired by the 
Great Spirit, shuddered at the consequences, which he plainly 
foresaw would follow if the two brothers should become rivals in 
the affections of Ono-keo-co. They were both fiery, and impatient 
of opposition as well as of restraint, and if the one should triumph 
over the other in winning the heart of Ono-keo-co, he knew that 
the rejected one would revenge his wounded feelings, perhaps in 
a brother's blood. He, therefore, with that goodness for which 
he was famed, feigned an ignorance of the affair and kept silent 
on the subject even to the chief, well knowing that to expose the 
matter, would hasten whatever catastrophe was to follow. The 
chief, who was more dull in apprehension than the wise Tame- 
nend, had not noticed anything, beyond common gallantry, in the 
conduct of the two young warriors, his sons, towards her whom 
he had adopted, and decked with the regalia of a princess. 

As the sun was sinking over the boundless woods in the west, 
the whole party repaired to their canoes, and, in the order they 
came, they returned up the Brandywine, singir^g the war-song 
which celebrated the brave deeds of the tribe. As time wore 
away, so aid the griefs of the young Ono-keo-co; for the youth- 
ful mind cannot long remain weighed down with woe, but like 
the elastic bow let loose, will suddenly return to its former condi- 
tion. The honors, and the adoration, too, which were paid to 
Ono-keo-co, who was indeed worshipped on account of her great 
beauty, would have intoxicated one much more advanced in years; 
for, disguise it as we may, flattery is a sweet morsel to all, parti- 
cularly when it comes in the shape of truth, and it is certainly 
the nearest road to woman's heart. Ono-keo-co became, every 
day, more and more, resigned to her fate; and, as her smiles 
returned, like sunshine to her heart, she became more and more 
irresistibly lovely. Her beauty began to attract the young warriors 
of other tribes, who sought to win her smiles, but she remained 
IS 



138 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

insensible to the protestations of all, even to those of Neomock 
and Photobrand, though the latter fancied that he ajjpeared more 
graceful in her sight than any other. 

Tamenend, without appearing to do so, watched the movements 
of them both, and observed an evident coldness in the manner of 
Neomock towards his brother. The old chief, entirely ignorant 
of what was going on, advised his eldest son, who at his death 
would become the chief of the tribe, to address Ono-keo-co, win 
her affections, marry her, and raise up a brave race. He little 
knew, nor did Photobrand tell him, that he would at that moment 
have given his eyes for her, could he have had the power to behold 
her beauty, after he gave them. 

Not long after the events I have narrated, Photobrand was 
standing on a towering rock on the Brandywine, idly gazing on 
the waters that rolled beneath him when Neomock wandered to 
the same spot. 

"Well met, my gentle brother," said Photobrand gaily, "are 
you licking from your lips the honey stolen from the luscious, 
lovely lips of the beautiful Ono-keo-co?" 

"I do not stoop to so mean an act as to steal even a kiss," 
returned Neomock, with a scowling look. 

"Why, brother, you seem to be in an ill humor. What has 
crossed you? Has the beautiful Ono-keo-co repulsed yonr love? 
Come, confide your sorrows to this bosom that " 

"That has wronged me," exclaimed Neomock. 

"Wronged you, brother! How have I wronged you?" 

"You have basely wronged me, by meanly stealing the affections 
of the beautiful Ono-keo-co, whom my soul idolizes. Can you 
deny it?" 

" I deny having wronged you. I have, it is true, won \he smiles 
of the fair creature ; but if she prefers me, there is surely no wrong 
in that, brother." 

"Photobrand, look me in the face, and say that you never 
spoken evil of me to her." 

"I do say so boldly, and any other man than my brother who 
dares to say so, shall feel this knife rankle in his heart," and he 
held the knife glittering in the gaze of Neomock. 

"Beware!" exclaimed Neomock, "how you tamper with the 
Great Bear, or he will squeeze your life out. Win her fairly, 
Photobrand, and take her." 

"I scorn the deed of winning her in any other way, and if by 
honorable means you can transplant me, why, in the name of the 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 139 

mighty Mannitto, take her, and not a sigh of mine shall ever dis- 
turb your repose." 

"Fil keep both an eye and ear upon you, Photobrand, and 
mark me, if I catch you in any more mean tricks, revenge deep 
and dreadful shall be mine." 

"Brother Neomock, I disregard your threats — I fear you not. 
Your anger I pity, your vengeance I defy, your threats I despise. 
Jealousy has taken possession of your heart, and robbed it of all 
its kindness. You were not always thus." 

" No, not when I had a brother, a generous brother, who was 
brave in war, and honorable in peace; but now, when that brother, 
lost to all honor, becomes a mean robber " 

"Forbear; Neomock," exclaimed Photobrand, seizing his bro- 
ther by the neck, "or, by the great Mannitto, my hands shall reek 
with a brother's blood." 

"Off! vile reptile," cried Neomock, as in rage he seized his 
slenderer brother by the arm, and dashed him headlong down the 
rock into the water, yelling the word, "Off!" till the forest echoed 
it back far and near. 

Photobrand arose, bleeding profusely, and started up the hill 
in rage, to slay his brother; but the memory of the gentle precepts, 
which had been instilled into his mind by the noble-hearted Tam- 
enend, came upon his recollection, and he burst into tears, and 
wept like a child. Tamenend came to the spot at the moment, 
and seeing the blood streaming from his face, enquired the cause. 
On hearing that they had quarrelled, though they both endeavored 
to hide from him the cause, he easily guessed it, and implored 
them to be friends, telling them that the same blood ran in their 
veins, that they had both fed and been nursed upon the bosom of 
the same mother, and that the Great Spirit, frowning upon the 
quarrels of brothers, would never prosper them, or give them the 
honors of victory on the field of battle. So powerful was his 
appeal, and so fondly and kindly did he press that they should be 
friends, representing to them that the feuds of brothers are the 
most bitter and bloody of all feuds, that Photobrand offered his 
hand, which Neomock took, though it was evident there was still 
a bitterness in his heart. 

The bleeding from the nose of Photobrand was stopped, and 
they all returned to the wigwam, without the knowledge of their 
difficulty having reached the ears of the chief Time passed on, 
and both secretly endeavored to win the heart of the charming 
Ono-keo-co, but it soon became apparent, by her actions, that 



140 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Photobrand was the lord of her affections, while the society of 
Neomock became more and more disagreeable to her, which, for 
the sake of peace, she in vain endeavored to conceal. Neomock 
perceived that his brother was triumphing over him; his soul 
brooded in darkness on revenge; and in the frequent broils that 
occurred, the real cause of them was made known to Kankinaw, 
the chief, by Tamenend, in the hope of his generous soul that the 
chief might have power to end them. 

The council fire was lighted, and all the warriors and women 
were assembled in solemn council, for the women among the 
Indians had a voice in matters of State, and who indeed have a 
greater interest, not to speak of sound judgment, in matters that 
concern the public welfare, than women? Happy is that husband, 
who takes counsel of his wife in things that greatly concern him ! 

As the Canai Indians, on the Potomac, had killed one of the 
Delawares, a year before, and the length of time that had elapsed 
had thrown them off their guard, it was agreed that a war should 
be commenced against them, which would accomplish two objects, 
that of doing away the feuds between the brothers, and of reveng- 
ing an injury. 

Accordingly, the great war-kettle was put on the fire : the war- 
song commenced, with dances ; the hatchet was sent to the villages 
and allies; and the most hideous bowlings rung incessantly, day 
and night, through the forests. The women added their cries to 
those of the men, in loud, wild lamentations for those who had 
formerly been slain in battle, and demanding that their places 
should be supplied by the captives taken from the enemy. 

The whole tribe was thus raised to the greatest fury, and all 
longed to imbrue their hands in blood. The war-captain prepared 
the feast of dog's flesh, and as every one advanced to partake, he 
received a billet, which was an agreement that they would be 
faithful to one another, and obedient to their commander. — None 
were forced to enter the ranks of war, but when they accepted 
this billet they were considered enlisted, and to flinch was death. 

All those who have enlisted thus for the war, had their faces 
blackened with charcoal, over which were painted stripes or streaks 
of Vermillion. Their hair was dressed in the most haggard and 
wild manner, into which were stuck feathers of various kinds. 
Their appearance altogether was exceedingly horrible and frightful. 

Before they set out on the march the chief began the war-song, 
which continued some time, when he raised his voice to the 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 141 

highest pitch, and then suddenly began an address, in a very 
solemn manner, to the Great Spirit Mannitto. 

"I implore thee to crown our undertaking with triumph. I 
invoke thee to take care of me and my tribe. I invoke all good 
and evil spirits, in the skies, on the earth, and under the earth, to 
hurl destruction on our enemies, and to return me and my brave 
warriors safely home." 

In this prayer all the warriors joined him. — A tremendous shout 
rent the air, when he had concluded, and acclamations rung loud 
and long along the rocky battlements of the Brandywine. The 
war-song and war-dance were again commenced by the chief, and 
the painted warriors, as they ran round him, rent the skies with 
their shouts, so long as he continued to dance. 

The day of their departure dawned. They took their leave of 
their friends and changed their clothes, and all their movables, in 
token of friendship. The women and female relatives went out 
some distance, and awaited their approach. The chief, Kankinaw, 
then gave the word, and the gay warriors, dressed in their most 
gaudy garb and most showy ornaments, marched out, one after 
anoffier, in regular order, for they never moved in rank, as our 
soldiers do. During this march the chief walked slowly before 
them, singing the death-song in the most mournful tones, while 
all the warriors observed the most profound and solemn silence. 
As soon as they approached the spot where the women had 
lialted, they commenced delivering them their finery, and putting 
on their most common clothes. This being done, a simultaneous 
burst of the war-whoop startled the beasts of the forest from 
their lair, and they went off at a quick pace, one after another, 
singing the war-song. 

To Ono-keo-co this scene was not only new but pleasing, 
because it was picturesque. She had now been so long estranged 
from her parents, and having been so young when rudely torn 
from them, the recollection of their tenderness was fading from 
her mind ; showing the influence a few years have over youthful 
memory. Then she had been so kindly received in her new home 
by Kankinaw and the good Tamenend ; she had been so much 
worshipped by the tribe, and so adored by Photobrand and his 
brother; in short, her eyes having witnessed nothing but feasting 
and merriment on her account, it was not strange that she should 
learn to love them. Some of the young squaws were jealous of 
her powerful beauty, but they feared openly to offer her any insult 
or injury, as they well knew that not only the chief and the ami- 



142 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

able Tatnenend, whose moral influence was great, would resent it, 
but that Photobrand would punish them severely. 

Ono-keo-co, though for a length of time she did not deign to 
listen to the protestations of Photobrand, was at last won by his 
devoted and persevering efforts; and indeed he was, though im- 
petuous and impatient of restraint, a noble youth, who had so distin- 
guished himself in war, that a chief of another tribe, whose son he 
had killed in battle, had offered as many bear and raccoon skins as 
twenty hunters could carry, to any bandit who would bring him to 
him dead or alive, the latter being preferred, as he wished to feast 
his eyes with his tortures. A bandit, among the Indians, was not 
strictly a robber; but one who was employed to capture, by stealth 
and stratagem, a person of one tribe, who had killed one, or done 
some egregrious wrong to, and was under the ban of another tribe. 

When Kankinaw and his warriors arrived in the country of the 
Canai, all but the old men, women and children, were gone on a 
hunting and trapping expedition, and at the hour of midday they 
rushed on the village, but the cries of the helpless falling upon 
the ears of Tamenend, who was the war-captain, he gave order 
that not a hair of their heads should be touched. This was a 
mercy not extended by other tribes, and it was a touching scene 
to witness the gratitude of the old men and women. Tamenend 
shed tears, while he harangued the warriors on the godlike nature 
of mercy. 

After leaving the village, they discovered their enemies on their 
return, and instantly every warrior threw himself flat on his face 
among the withered leaves, the color of which their bodies were 
painted exactly to resemble. Unperceived by the Canai warriors 
and hunters, they suffered a part of them to pass unmolested, then 
rising a little, they took deliberate aim; let fly a tempest of toma- 
hawks and arrows, and yelling the awful war-cry, which was 
answered by the enemy, every one flew behind a tree. In this 
manner the contest continued for some time, when Photobrand, 
rushinu from his covert, called on the warriors to follow him, which 
they did, and tomahawks flew fast, while the reeking scalps were 
torn from the heads of one another. Hand to hand they fought, 
while the trees were spattered with blood and brains that gushed 
when the hatchet sunk deep into the skull. 

At length the Delawares were triumphant, and, mad with fury, 
they bit the flesh, tore the scalps from the heads, and wallowed in 
the blood, of the defeated Canai. From the village they took 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 143 

such prisoners as pleased them, and singing a song of triumph, 
they set out on their return to the Brandywine. 

When the conquerors arrived at the spot now occupied by the 
beautiful farm-house of Mr. Boyce, not far from the banks of the 
Brandywine, vast numbers of the tribe were assembled and seated 
on the hill, where the house now stands, and down the beautiful 
slope to the valley below. 

The war-captain, Tamenend, immediately waited on the head 
men, and, in a suppressed voice, related every circumstance which 
had transpired during the expedition, giving a minute detail of 
their own loss, and that of the enemy. This being done, the 
public orator, Oonatonga, took his station on the brow of the hill, 
and, in a loud voice, proclaimed the whole to the people around 
and below. 

The voice of mourning then was heard throughout the vast 
assemblage ; every one who had lost a friend in the battle, crying 
out in the most piteous tones of lamentation, and demanding a 
captive to supply the place of the deceased. Suddenly Oonatonga 
gave the signal, and in an instant all tears were wiped from the 
eyes of the mourners, and the sound of rejoicing was heard, while 
many gave way to the phrenzy of joy, and the most extravagant 
expressions of triumph for the victory. 

The prisoners, in suspense, were trembling for their future fate. 
It was a custom to present a slave, or captive, to every wigwam 
that had lost a friend in battle; those to have the best whose loss 
had been the greatest. Accordingly, a captive was taken to the 
wigwam of every one who had lost a friend, and with him or her 
was given a belt of wampum. All the captives were received into 
the respective wigwams, to supply the place of, and be treated as, 
the father, son or brother, who had been slain, except two, who 
threw away the belts of wampum with indignation, by which it 
was understood that these two captives were doomed to die by- 
torture. One was a full-blooded Canai warrior, and the other, 
though painted, was supposed to be a half-blood, who was slender, 
and wasted away by grief or disease. The former was called 
Obando, and the latter Omai. 

The death-song was now sung, and preparations made for the 
execution of the two captives who were to die by slow torture. 
The victims knew not their fate until they beheld the scaffold and 
the stake, to which they were to be tied. Obando betrayed no 
sign of fear or grief, but Omai threw himself at the feet of Kan- 
kinaw, the chief, and in the most piteous tones, implored him to 



144 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

spare his life, as he had never wronged the tribe; but Kankinaw 
informed him that it was the will of his owner, and according to 
custom, and he must die; exhorting him to die bravely, to die as 
became a warrior, and not to beg for life like a woman. 

Weeping and lamenting his fate, Omai was placed near the 
scaffold that he might witness the death agonies of Obando, who, 
after having composedly smoked the calumet, ascended, with a 
firm step the scaffold, and without resistance, suffered himself to 
be tied to the stake, assuring the assembled multitude that he 
could bear any torture they could inflict, and with disdain daring 
them to the trial. 

The torture commenced, and while the executioners were 
piercing him with sharp instruments, he gave his soul to song, 
and broke forth in a strain, of which the following words will 
convey to the reader's mind the meaning. 

Pierce on, ye tormentors, I spurn ye in pain, 
Ye shall never, no never, shall hear me complain ; 
Ye may tear, ye may torture ; no pity I crave, 
For ye never can conquer Obando the brave. 

Ye may cut, ye may carve ; ye can't conquer my soul, 
The will of Obando ye cannot control ; 
With faggots of flame ye may burn to the brain, 
But the son of Secomo shall never complain. 

1 spurn you, tormentors, I scorn all your art, 

Ye hell-hounds, that thirst for the blood of my heart ; 

Burn on, vv^hile I curse ye — no pity I crave, 

For ye never can conquer Obando the brave. 

While the heroic captive was undergoing the excruciating tor- 
tures inflicted, he continued to sing, or laugh, in scorn at the 
impotent attempts of his enemies to subdue his spirit, and taunted 
them with ignorance of the modes of most severe torture. While 
he filled and smoked the pipe with the greatest apparent composure, 
he pointed out to them the parts of the body most sensitive, and 
described the means of causing the most exquisite torture. His 
body was now covered with blood, that trickled in a thousand 
streams from the punctures made by sharp instruments. Splinters, 
of seasoned oak, were pushed under his nails and set on fire, 
while the assembly looked on with delight, to see whether the 
victim writhed in his agony. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 145 

All enjoyed the scene but the delicate Omai, who fainted at 
seeing the small faggots, stuck in the flesh of Obando, burn 
blisters, and at the thought that he was doomed to undergo similar 
tortures. 

Though Ono-keo-co had now been several years among the 
Indians, and had become familiar with many of their cruel cus- 
toms, for it does not require the youthful mind long to become so, 
her heart sickened at the scene before her, and she shuddered at 
the thought that she was to witness the agonies of another. She 
gazed upon the sad countenance of Omai, and pity was awakened 
in her bosom. She knew the power she had over the chief, as 
well as over Tamenend and Photobrand, but she started at the 
idea of opposing the will of the whole tribe, well knowing that 
Neomock would oppose any thing which she might influence 
Photobrand to advocate, for the demon of jealousy and revenge 
was roused in his heart. 

The torture continued until Obando became blind and delirious, 
when he was untied and suflTered to stagger about for the amuse- 
ment of the spectators. Tired at length with the exhibition of 
human agony, one of the warriors, in mercy, put an end to his 
sufferings, burying his tomahawk in his brain. 

The heart of Ono-keo-co melted in pity for Omai, for he gazed 
upon her with an appealing eye, and she resolved to save him if 
possible. Influenced by Photobrand, she was that day dressed in 
her royal robe; her face painted, to please his taste; and her 
auburn hair, which had been colored jet black by galls, adorned 
with the most gay and gaudy feathers. Her step was that of a 
princess. 

After pleading in vain for the life of Omai, she solicited that 
the execution of the captive might be postponed. In this, through 
the influence of Photobrand and Tamenend, she succeeded, 
though violently opposed by Neomock, who watched with the 
eyes of Argus, the growing tenderness between his brother and 
the object of his soul's adoration. 

Omai was confined in a wigwam, still under the doom of torture, 
which had only been delayed to gratify Ono-keo-co. The indi- 
vidual, to whom Omai had been presented as a slave, and who 
had thrown away the belt of wampum, thereby dooming him to 
death, was the only person who had a right to save him, though 
some times the chief took the authority; and this person was 
prejudiced by Neomock, and induced to refuse granting the life 
of the victim. 
19 



146 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

The torture of Obando took place at the time of the full moon, 
and the time fixed for the execution of Omai, was the change of 
the same moon. Every day Neomock loved Ono-keo-co more, 
until his passion amounted almost to madness, though that passion 
did not grow upon what it fed, for every day he discovered that 
the mutual affection of Ono-keo-co and Photobrand became 
stronger. 

Omai supposed Ono-keo-co to be an Indian princess, from her 
always appearing before him painted in the manner of the squaws, 
and dressed in the Indian costume. She visited the captive, in 
company with Photobrand, every day, endeavoring to sooth his 
troubled spirit, for there was something in the sound of Omai's 
voice, which was irresistibly touching to the soul of Ono-keo-co. 
There was a melancholy tenderness, a mournful sweetness, that 
came upon her ear like the echo of long buried bliss, revealing to 
her mind a vague recollection of something, she knew not what, 
as is the case with all persons at particular times. And when 
they conversed, and Omai told her, in tears, that he had had a 
daughter once, the idol of his soul, but who was, alas! torn from 
his arms and carried into captivity, Ono-keo-co could not refrain 
from weeping at the recollection of her own parents. 

Neomock, who had learned to hate his brother with bitterness, 
on account of his possessing the love of Ono-keo-co, and who 
had studied in the solitude of the woods, the best means of tri- 
umphing over Photobrand, and of forcing her to his own arms, 
suddenly approached the happy pair, one day, and extended his 
hand in friendship, at the same time presenting the calumet of 
peace to Photobrand. Astonished at this, Photobrand was de- 
lighted, and listened with pleasure while Neomock expatiated on 
the beauties of brotherly love, and invited him and his betrothed, 
Ono-keo-co, to go with him, the next day, on an excursion of 
pleasure in his beautiful bark canoe. Photobrand, in frankness, 
informed his brother, that he had honorably won the heart of the 
beautiful Ono-keo-co, and that his marriage would ere long be 
celebrated with great pomp. Though, at this intelligence, a cloud 
passed over the features of Neomock, he expressed pleasure, and 
wished that their lives might be long and happy, blessed with a 
race of brave warriors. 

Suspecting no treachery, Photobrand prepared to go, in com- 
pany with his beloved, on the intended excursion. No sleep, that 
night, blessed the eyes of Neomock; and he vowed, in the dark- 
ness of his soul, that Ono-keo-co, should never be the bride of 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BAKU. 147 

his brother; that she should never wed any but himself. His 
passions were dark and stormy, and all night he writhed in the 
agonies of thought, like a victim at the stake. 

The next morning the sun rose bright and beautiful, and the 
three entered the bark canoe, on the bank of the Brandy wine ; 
while their friends, in great numbers, had departed on a short 
hunting expedition. With a forced gaiety, Neomock entertained 
them with a long harangue, until the canoe had passed down, 
below where the Brandywine bridge now stands, and finding they 
were in deep water, he then addressed Photobrand in the following 
language, while his dark eyes flashed with the fires of hell. 

"Brother, I now speak to you. I wish you to listen. You 
knew I loved Ono-keo-co first. Why did you meanly steal her 
from me, like a wolf?" 

Photobrand, at the last words, sprung upon his feet. 

"Hear, me brother," continued Neomock. "It is ill manners 
to interrupt me. You must give her up to nie, or die. You cannot 
swim. I give you a short time to consider." 

Photobrand stood amazed, unable to speak, while Ono-keo-co 
clung to him with a convulsive grasp. Neither of them could 
swim, Photobrand being seized with cramp whenever he entered 
the water. Neomock, too, was by far the more powerful man, as 
Photobrand had been satisfied of, when his brother threw him 
down the rock. There was but one paddle in the canoe, Neo- 
mock having carefully removed every thing (hat might be used as 
a weapon. 

" Have you consented, brother, to relinquish the beloved of my 
heart?" enquired Neomock, with the scowl of a demon. As he 
spoke, he stooped, and drew forth, from the bottom of the canoe, 
a small plug, that let in the water in a stream not larger than a 
gimlet. 

" Behold, brother, you have but a short time to make up your 
mind. Consent that she shall be mine, or perish." 

The canoe was now approaching the Delaware river, and Ono- 
keo-co, seeing that the water must soon sink the canoe, screamed 
with affright, but no one heard her cry. Neomock stood gazing 
upon Photobrand with demoniac triumph, while the latter returned 
the glance with proud defiance; but when he saw the water rising 
in the canoe, and thought that he must perish in the waves with 
Ono-keo-co, if his brother's demand was not granted, his forti- 
tude faltered; he shuddered; and looked at Ono-keo-co to read 
her determination in her countenance. For the sake of her life, 



148 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

he begged her to consent to be the wife of Neomock; while, for 
himself, he was resolved to perish, rather than accede to the 
demand of his brother. Death, to him, was preferable to the loss 
of Ono-keo-co, yet rather than that she should perish, he was 
willing she should yield. 

"Quick!" exclaimed Neomock, "the canoe will soon sink. 
Will you give her to me, to save your life, brother?" 

" No," cried Photobrand, with a voice of thunder. 

To the astonishment of Photobrand, when Neomock put the 
question to Ono-keo-co, whether to save her life she would forsake 
Photobrand and become his wife, she exclaimed, with the same 
emphatic firmness, 

"No, I will perish first. Do your worst, ungrateful man; we 
will die in each other's arms. Never will I be the wife of him I 
cannot love, or who thus meanly takes the advantage of his 
brother." 

Neomock gritted his teeth in rage, at thus finding his plan foiled. 
The canoe was now fast filling with water, and as Photobrand 
gazed upon the tearful eyes of Ono-keo-co, who stood wringing 
her hands in despair, his soul was roused to madness, and, for- 
getting the gentle precepts of the sage Tamenend, he rushed 
suddenly and furiously upon his brother, and ere he had time to 
prepare himself for defence, hurled him into the water. But as 
Neomock was dashed into the waves on the one side, Ono-keo-co 
was thrown overboard on the other. Her dress buoyed her up for 
a while, but what could Photobrand do? He could not swim; 
the only paddle on board of the canoe was in the hands of Neo- 
mock, when thrown overboard, and the tide was bearing the canoe 
away from the drowning object of his idolatry. With imploring 
shrieks for help, he saw her throwing her arms in the air, and he 
was tempted to leap into the water and perish with her. As her 
clothes became saturated with water, she began to sink. Know- 
ing not what to do, the bewildered Photobrand ran from one end 
of the canoe to the other, while the distance between him and the 
being he adored, increased. Luckily, Neomock, incommoded by 
the paddle, had relinquished it, and it was passing down the tide. 
But, alas! the canoe was passing equally as fast; but, while de- 
spairing at blasted hope, the canoe drifted against a pole, which 
some of the Indians had fastened in the bed of the river and hope 
revived. Fearful that Ono-keo-co would drown ere he could fly 
to her assistance, he exerted his strength to the utmost, and suc- 
ceeded in pulling up the pole. As he turned his eye to see 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 149 

whether she had sunk, he beheld Neomock swimming towards 
her, to force from her the pledge that she would be his wife, or 
leave her to her fate. 

Madness now seized the soul of Photobrand, and, with the en- 
ergy which desperation gives, he pushed towards the spot. So 
soon as Neomock discovered the approach of his brother, he 
turned and struck lustily for the other shore, convinced that he 
was not now a match for Photobrand. Ono-keo-co was sinking 
the second time, when her betrothed husband seized her by her 
long hair, and rescued her from a watery grave. He lifted her 
insensible form into the canoe, and while he gazed into her pale 
face, from which the paint had been washed, the far off forests 
rung with his agonizing cry of despair. 

As the boat touched the shore, she sunk. Life was not quite 
extiuct in the heart of Ono-keo-co, and in the course of an hour, 
she revived. The canoe was then bailed; the hole in the bottom 
stopped; and they returned up the Brandywine, while Neomock 
had wandered off into the impenetrable thickets, that then covered 
ihe land which is now in meadow. He did not make his appear- 
ance for some days, well knowing that the anger of the chief 
would soon wear away. 

When he did return, it was in smiles, pretending that what had 
happened was intended as a mere freak, to fright his brother and 
his plighted bride. When Ono-keo-co arrived, the hunters had 
not returned; and she went to the wigwam in which the captive 
was confined. No sooner did she enter, than the captive gazed 
for a moment on her face, from which the paint had been washed, 
and then exclaimed, in the wild delirium of her joy, 

" Oh! God, it must be — it is my child! my Lelia!" 

Oinai, though weak from grief, sprang forward to embrace her, 
but finding that Ono-keo-co was startled, she said, 

"Do you not know — Oh! Lelia, my beloved and lost, do you 
not know your own dear mother, in disguise ?" 

Ono-keo-co awoke, as from a dream. She could not be mis- 
taken in that voice. It had awakened her sympathy before, and 
now, being assured it was her long-lost mother who stood before 
her, she rushed in a transport of joy to her arms, and their tears 
were mingled. But her vision of bliss was of short duration, for 
the horrid consciousness came upon her, that that mother was 
doomed to die by torture. 

They both wept, while Mrs. Brabant related the hardships she 
had endured in pursuit of her husband. That she had put on 



150 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

male attire, to escape insult, and had been taken by the Canai 
Indians, from whom she had never found an opportunity to escape. 
Her being taken by the Delawares and doomed to death, was 
already known to her daughter. Her husband she had never 
found. 

Ono-keo-co now determined to save her, or perish with her. 
She communicated the secret to Photobrand, who readily promised 
to aid her, in freeing her mother from her impending fate. When 
the hunters returned, the chief was informed of the fact; he as- 
sembled a council, and Oonatonga, the orator, proclaimed it to 
the assembled multitude. A sympathy was at first felt, but the 
wily Neomock whispered it about, that it was a trick of Ono-keo- 
co, aided by Photobrand, to save the life of the victim; and soon 
public opinion was turned, and the cry was that the viclim should 
die. 

In distraction and despair, Ono-keo-co communicated the un- 
happy tidings to her mother, that she had made the appeal in vain, 
and that death was her inevitable doom, unless some plan of 
escape could be devised. Neomock, like a malicious fiend, was 
ever watching, fearful that he would be debarred the pleasure of 
giving pain to her, who had so scornfully refused to become his 
wife. 

Photobrand, on the other hand, resolved to assist Ono-keo-co 
in freeing her mother from the doom that awaited her, and as the 
day of torture was near at hand, it was necessary that they should 
put into execution the plan of her escape as soon as possible, 
lest the opportunity might slip. 

Accordingly, every preparation was made; a canoe was con- 
cealed in the bushes, on the bank of the Brandywine, and a dress, 
belonging to Ono-keo-co, was in readiness, in which Mrs. Brabant 
was to be conveyed, in the darkness of the night, to the canoe. 

It was the dark of the moon, and the night was intensely dark. 
Photobrand, armed with a tomahawk, led Mrs. Brabant down the 
rocky bank of the Brandywine, every moment in danger of tumb- 
ling down the precipice. Suddenly, torches glared upon the 
gloom of night; voices were heard, and the clashing of knives. 
A desperate fight ensued, and all was silent. 

The next day dawned; it was discovered that the captive was 
gone, and the rocks, in the neighborhood, stained with blood. 
Neomock could nowhere be found. Vague rumors and suspicions 
were whispered, and some suspected that a fight had ensued 
between Neomock and Photobrand, and that the former had been 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 151 

slain, and the body concealed. The chief was inconsolable for 
the loss of Neomock, while Photobrand declared that he had not 
killed him. He was afraid to relate what had transpired the night 
before, as he would thereby betray the secret, that he had aided 
the escape of the captive. Great grief was expressed by the tribe 
for the loss of so brave a warrior, and it was resolved, by a solemn 
council assembled., that the Feast of the Dead should be celebrated, 
in commemoration of his death. 

The Feast of the Dead, or the Feast of Souls, was the most 
solemn and magnificent of all the customs of the Indians. As 
the body of Neomock was supposed to have been concealed, a 
mock corpse was made. This was anointed and painted, as if it 
had been the real body, and the women went about, lamenting 
the death of Neomock, with the most bitter cries and horrid bowl- 
ings, interspersed with songs, in which the brave deeds of the 
deceased were celebrated. The mock body was attended to the 
grave by great numbers, where, arrayed in the most sumptuous 
habiliments, it was interred. By the side of the corpse were 
placed his tomahawk, bow and arrows, and all the things he valued 
most; and, with them, food, to last him on his long journey. 

Then commenced the Feast of the Dead. — All who had been 
buried since the last feast of the dead, were disinterred, and 
brought forth from their graves to one spot. Many were brought 
from a distance, and all exposed to the gaze of the multitude. It 
was a horrid scene for Ono-keo-co, and presented the various 
degrees of the ravages of time on the different dead bodies. They 
were dressed in the finest skins, and set up in groups; some being 
mere skeletons, glaring with ghastly sockets; while others were 
just beginning to decay. Amid these solemn and horrific repre- 
sentatives of the dead, they celebrated a variety of games, in the 
manner of the ancient Greeks and Romans, songs were sung, and 
dances were performed. As an honor to the dead, they feasted 
in their presence, and all that remained of the feast, was thrown 
into the fire. With great pomp, the dead were then re-interred, 
and the great multitude returned to their homes, well pleased with 
the gorgeous, though ghastly exhibition of human frailty and folly. 

But here, gentle reader, in having described the strange, horrid, 
and cruel customs of the aborigines, suffer me to warn you not 
to impute their terrific and cruel conduct wholly and entirely to 
ignorance and superstition, nor to suppose that superstition is 
always the offspring of ignorance. Roll back the records of his- 
tory, and it is apparent. When that splendid structure, the Coli- 



152 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

seum of Rome, (he crumbling columns of which are still standing, 
was erected, the Roman people were considered the wisest in the 
world, not even excepting those of Greece, and were disseminating 
knowledge to the benighted nations around them. Yet in that 
building more people assembled, at one time, to witness the con- 
tests between gladiators and wild beasts, than all the city of Rome 
now contains. They witnessed the fight of two gladiators, or of a 
gladiator and a wild beast, with delight; they took sides in tlie 
contest, and shouted with applause as the one dealt the other a 
terrible blow, which was followed by a gush of blood, or as (he 
wild beast tore the bowels from his quivering victim. Horrible 
exhibitions vvere there, yet that wisest people in the world looked 
on them with infinite pleasure, and saw a fellow-being impaled 
alive, or torn to pieces by an infuriated lion, tiger, or bull, and 
applauded the triumph of the favored one, with as much sang froid 
as an Indian, when witnessing the heroic fortitude of the dying 
Obando. The Roman people, too, were as superstitious as the 
Indians of Delaware, as history amply will substantiate. They 
believed in augurs or fortune-tellers, witchcraft, and "goblins 
damned." At the death of Ca3sar the ravens croaked in the 
chimneys, if they had any; strange omens were heard and seen, 
and the augur cried, "beware of the ides of March." 

But to resume our story. The chief, Kankinaw, gave orders 
that a search should be made, every where, for the body of his 
brave son, Neomock. It was believed, by many, that Photobrand 
had slain him, in revenge, as a rival in the love of Ono-keo-co, 
and (hat the body had been given to the waves, or concealed 
among the innumerable rocks, which were then piled in awful 
grandeur on the steep banks of the Brandywine, the most of which 
have since been removed by the hands of civilized art and industry. 

But the body could nowhere be found, and the wise Tamenend 
concluded that, as Neomock had been the terror of the tribes with 
which the Delawares had waged war; that, as a reward had been 
offered by the Canai chief, to any one who would take him dead 
or alive, he had been killed and carried off as a prize. War was, 
therefore, meditated; but, according to custom, it was determined 
that some time should elapse, in order to lull suspicion, that they 
might pounce upon their enemy in an hour, when he was least 
prepared for resistance. 

Photobrand, who really possessed a feeling heart, was sorry for 
the fate of his brother; though in his love for Ono-keo-co, the 
flower of the forest, he was now altogether unmolested. The old 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. l53 

chief was still inconsolable. He had never had but two children, 
for it is a strange fact, but seldom mentioned by historians, that 
the Indians, unlike the civilized whites, are not prolific, seldom 
having more than two or three children, and scarcely ever giving 
birth to twins, which has been one of the grand causes that the 
race has declined, and is now rapidly fading away from the face 
of the earth. There is another idiosyncrasy or peculiarity in the 
Indians, but little known, and seldom mentioned by writers, which 
is, that they have no beards, like white men, which is one of the wise 
provisions of nature, for in the forest they had no razors, no soap, 
no barbers. Thus we see, that God adapts every^ thing in nature 
to its condition, object, or end. Were they fruitful in bearing 
children, it is evident that, in their wild, wandering state, they 
could not properly take care of them. When we observe the 
adaptation of every thing in the creation to its condition or cir- 
cumstances, how can we deny the existence of a Superior Being? 
Well might the poet exclaim, 

"An undevout astronomer is mad," 

But the evidence of a God is as plain and powerful in a plant 
as in a planet, in a worm as in a world. It is said that fish have 
recently been discovered in the waters of that immense subter- 
ranean world, the mammoth cave of Kentucky, that have no eyes, 
organs of vision being useless in the darkness of the eternal night 
that reigns there. 

My dear reader will excuse my frequent episodes, or digres- • 
sions, as they serve to illustrate the subject of my story. They 
contain the philosophic cream of the contents, and marrow of 
the matter; being what sugar and cream are to a cup of coffee. 

Some time after the captive had escaped, and Neomock met 
his fate, a stout, athletic squaw wandered into the settlement of 
the Delawares, on the Brandywine, gaily adorned with beads and 
feathers, and painted in the most grotesque manner. At first, the 
practised eye of the shrewd Tamenend thought he discovered in 
her a spy; but, when questioned, she professed to be skilled in 
occult mysteries, and to have the power not only of prophecy, but 
of revealing past transactions, which were to other eyes wrapped 
in the impenetrable veil of obscurity. On her having given some 
proofs of her supernatural powers, by unravelling some mysteries 
which they propounded, not only Kankinaw and Tamenend felt 
nn awe in her presence, but great numbers thronged around, and 
20 



154 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

treated her with all the profound reverence that would be felt for 
an inspired being, sent among them by the Great Spirit. 

They were anxious to learn the name of the murderer of Neo- 
mock, which Kananka, the prophetess and fortune-teller, declared 
she could reveal, but that, before she did so. all the persons present 
must enter a charmed circle, in the centre of which she herself 
would stand. She declared that when her incantation was com- 
plete, if they would all at the same time kneel, with their faces to 
the setting sun, the voice of Neomock would distinctly pronounce 
the name of his murderer, and would speak, in one word, the 
doom which the Great Spirit designed for him. 

Wonder and consternation were now strongly depicted on every 
countenance, for they implicitly believed that her mission was 
divine, as she had already told what none but one inspired by the 
Great Spirit, could have known. 

A large circle was now drawn, and all present entered the 
charmed precincts, with feelings of awe and dread. Photobrand 
came to the spot at this moment, and, not having heard the pre- 
liminary discourse, refused to enter, which was thought strange, 
and convinced many that he was the murderer of his brother. 

Kananka, the sorceress, however, declared that it was not ma- 
terial that he should enter, as there were enough to witness the 
pronunciation of the name of the murderer. After having per- 
formed some mysterious rites, the sorceress declared that the 
revelation had commenced, and that if it was desired by the chief, 
she would repeat it to the assembled multitude. The chief ex- 
. pressed a desire to hear what was revealed, and Kananka com- 
menced, by asking — 

" Have you, great chief, a beautiful captive, called Ono-keo-co?" 

"We have," answered the chief, with a tremulous voice. 

"She has been the innocent cause of the murder of your son, 
and of all your grief." 

While the sorceress spoke, the assembled Indians silently gazed 
upon one another in astonishment. 

" Your brave son, Neomock," continued Kananka, the sorceress, 
" loved her, when his eyes first fell upon her, and she loved him ; 
but Photobrand Have you a son, named Photobrand?" 

"He has," answered Tamenend, after a pause, for the chief was 
so overpowered by his feelings that he could not speak. 

"Well, your son, Photobrand, meanly stole away from Neomock 
the love of Ono-keo-co, and " 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

"It is false! by the great Mannitto," exclaimed Photobrand, 
while a shudder of horror, at the sacrilege, ran through the crowd. 

"I am inspired so to speak," said the mysterious sorceress. 
"Nay, worse is that which is now revealed to me. Photobrand 
hated his brother, because he first loved the Flower of the Forest, 
and, not satisfied with the triumph of having stolen her affection, 
he cherished in his bosom the serpent of jealousy." 

"It is a base lie!" exclaimed Photobrand, while the multitude 
again shuddered, and a murmur was heard among the assembly. 

"Not satisfied with being jealous of his generous brother," 
continued the sorceress, with imperturable gravity, "he attempted 
his life — yes, the life of his harmless, gentle brother." 

Enraged at this assertion, Photobrand rushed at the sorceress, 
with all the wrath of an enraged tiger, when, to the astonishment 
of all, he seemed like a child in her grasp. She held him still for 
a moment, and then, lifting him with apparent ease, she pitched 
him outside of the enchanted circle. 

Astonished at this, the spectators, more than ever, were satisfied 
that Kananka was indeed a wonderful being, endowed with strange 
gifts, seeing that a woman could thus manage a man, as a man 
would a child. If they stood in awe of her before, they now 
feared her as a mysterious being, possessing mysterious powers, 
to resist whom or which was in the highest degree rashness and 
folly. 

Even Photobrand, who looked on her as an imposter before, 
now felt a dread of her, as one to whom was given powers not 
delegated to common mortals, for nothing but proof, could have 
persuaded him that a woman could have thus handled him. The 
revelation now continued. 

"Now," said Kananka, "I repeat that Photobrand attempted 
the life of his brother, twice." While the Indians simultaneously 
turned their eyes upon Photobrand, a loud voice pronounced the 
name of Photobrand, and immediately after, the word "death." 
All started at the sound, for they recognized the voice of Neo- 
mock, altogether unlike the shrill, fine, feminine voice of the Sor- 
ceress. Every eye was fixed upon Photobrand, who stood speech- 
less, as if spell-bound, while Ono-keo-co wrung her hands, and 
protested his innocence of the crime; well knowing that, if the 
tribe should be fully persuaded of his guilt, he would be doomed 
to death. 

The multitude became more and more convinced of the truth 
of what the Sorceress had professed, and by a singular process of 



156 W^RITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

logic, were rapidly arriving at conclusions, which strongly impli- 
cated the unhappy brother in the crime of murder. Condemna- 
tion was openly pronounced, by many, against Photobrand; but 
the enlarged mind of Tamenend, not altogether ignorant of juris- 
prudence, saw the unjust course which public opinion was taking, 
and delivered an address to the multitude, in which he pointed out 
the injustice of condemning a brave warrior without proof. He 
declared that they had not only to prove that Photobrand was 
guilty, but that Neomock was dead; and if dead, that he had been 
murdered. As much as we, of the Anglo-Saxon race, boast of 
having invented or given origin to the trial by jury, it appears that 
the early Indians were not totally ignorant of that glorious insti- 
tution, for it appears that in difficult cases they appointed men, 
who acted both as witnesses and jurors, to decide the guilt of the 
prisoner. 

Had not Tamenend, however, represented the injustice of the 
matter, Photobrand would have been condemned instanter, viva 
voce, by the voice of the multitude, so much were the minds of 
the people influenced by the incantations, or mysterious declara- 
tions of Kananka, the Sorceress. Superstition was powerful, but 
Tamenend stayed, in a measure, the overwhelming tide of indig- 
nation, which threatened to roll over Photobrand. It was, there- 
fore, resolved, in solemn council, to have proof positive of the 
guilt of the accused, before he should be irrevocably doomed to 
destruction. 

" Can you prove," enquired Tamenend, who had been the 
teacher, and who was greatly attached to Photobrand, "that he 
killed Neomock?" 

"Yes," replied the Sorceress, "there is proof." 
"Bring it, then," commanded the Chief, in tears, "and though 
Photobrand is my favorite son, he shall suffer death. I have said 
it in the presence of the Great Spirit — he shall die, if guilty." 

Ono-keo-co screamed at these awful denunciatory words, but 
Photobrand heard them without betraying the least emotion, either 
in word or gesture, but calmly said, 

"If I am guilty, oh! my father, I am ready and willing to die." 
The noble bearing of Photobrand had entirely won the affec- 
tions of Ono-keo-co, and she had yielded to him her whole soul. 
Beautiful and gentle, she was all that he could desire her to be, 
for, as Caesar desired his wife to be, not only virtuous, but beyond 
suspicion, her reputation was unspotted by even a breath. When 
painted, and arrayed with gay beads, and ribbands, and Photobrand, 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 157 

her lover, spared nothing that would deck and adorn her, she was 
truly a beautiful ^otwer of the forest. 

Tamenend now made it obligatory on the Sorceress to bring 
forth not only one, but several witnesses, who were to declare, in 
the presence of Mannitto, the Great Spirit, equivalent to the 
Christian oath, that Neomock was dead; that he was murdered; 
and that Photobrand was the murderer. This, the Sorceress did 
not hesitate to promise to do. The Chief declared that Photo- 
brand should enjoy the kindness of all, and hold the same high 
distinction as a warrior, until it was fully proven that he was guilty, 
and then he should be stripped of all his honors; the scalps, that 
graced his wigwam, should be burnt; and that he should die an 
ignominious death. 

Ono-keo-co clung to Photobrand, weeping and protesting his 
innocence, while he embraced the Chief and Tamenend, declaring 
his innocence, and reiterating the assertion, that he would ever 
prefer death to dishonor, and again declaring his readiness to die 
by the most excruciating torments, if he were fairly proven guilty. 

The Sorceress departed, positively assuring the multitude that 
she could find, and bring forward, persons, who would declare 
that Photobrand killed his brother. Notwithstanding the lack of 
proof, the greater portion of the people believed that Photobrand 
had murdered Neomock; and their belief in the supernatural 
powers of Kananka, nothing could shake. She must be gifted by 
the Great Spirit, said they, in their mode of reasoning, or how 
could she know of the loves of Photobrand and Ono-keo-co, and 
that, on her account, he had killed his brother? thus taking, it for 
granted, that he really was the murderer. 

The Chief and Tamenend were deeply distressed, lest it should 
appear that Photobrand had slain his brother in a fit of jealousy, 
and that the former would thus be rendered childless. With 
aching hearts they awaited the return of the Sorceress; and the 
danger which now surrounded Photobrand, increased the affliction 
of Ono-keo-co, until she seemed to idolize him, and to live only 
in his existence. With the devotion of woman, when she once 
loves, she gave up her whole soul to the object of her idolatry, 
and identified herself with every thing that concerned him. She 
even resolved in her own mind, that she would die with him, if, 
through stratagem and false evidence, the life of her lover should 
be sacrificed; for she could never entertain the idea, for a moment, 
that he was guilty. She knew that Photobrand had loved his 
brother, and she well knew that his heart was alive to those gen- 



158 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

erous impulses and feelings which would prompt him to any ac- 
tion, rather than that of imbruing his hands in a brother's blood. 
Her soul recoiled at the thought of imputing such a dark and 
dreadful crime to him, and she lived in the hope of seeing him 
rise triumphant over his enemies and their machinations. Photo- 
brand had many enemies among the young warriors, as superior 
men ever have, even in a civilized and Christian community. 
Envy gnawed, like the viper at the file. His superior endow- 
ments, fame, birth, (for even the Indians had aristocratic notions,) 
excited the envy of inferior men, and envy is the parent of hatred, 
and often of revenge, which gluts itself, or rather its own inferi- 
ority, by attempting to drag every thing down to its own level. 
We may preach equality to the end of time, but the time will 
never come when all men shall be equal. We might as well look 
for equality among the stars, and expect to find the moon shining 
with the same brilliance as the sun. We might as well expect the 
same qualities in iron, lead, or copper, that are inherent in gold. 
As gold is superior in its greater properties of ductility and mal- 
leability, so are some men superior to others in attributes, which 
can never be equalled by the inferior. Men can never be equal, 
only in natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness; and this was all the equality that Thomas Jef- 
ferson intended to specify, in that magna charta, the Declaration 
of Independence. As soon will you find equality in a barrel of 
apples, a bushel of wheat, a field of corn, or an orchard of trees — 
as soon will you find equality in a herd of cattle or horses, a pen 
full of pigs, or a garden filled with flowers, as in the human family. 
The flowers of the field, and the trees of the orchard are equal, as 
it regards their natural rights, or powers of enjoying the sunshine 
and showers, and of imbibing nourishment from the earth; but 
they are not equal in themselves. One is superior to another, in 
its beauty, its size, its useful properties, and many other respects. 
So, in like manner, men are equal in their natural rights; but not 
in themselves. Some possess greater strength, greater minds; are 
more useful to the community in which they live; but the misfor- 
tune is, that they do not always rank as they deserve; the most 
wise and most useful do not always stand the highest; neither do 
the most virtuous. This arises from the fact that society is based 
on false principles. 

But to proceed. It was not long before Kananka, the Sorceress, 
returned, with several persons, curiously habited and painted, who, 
she pretended, were as deeply skilled in necromancy as herself, 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 159 

and who were present on the night that Neoraock was murdered. 
Photobrand gazed silently upon them, and appeared to be un- 
moved, though he felt that his doom would be sealed if they testi- 
fied against him, notwithstanding his innocence. The tears of 
Ono-keo-co fell fast, for she saw the danger to which her betrothed 
was exposed. So soon as it was rumored that Kananka, the Sor- 
ceress, had arrived, there was a great gathering of the people, 
from all directions, to listen to the trial of Photobrand, for the 
murder of his brother. Curiosity was abroad, and gathered great 
numbers, some of whom sincerely hoped that he might be proven 
guilty. Oonatonga, the public orator, in the manner of the crier 
of our courts, proclaimed that the wise men of the tribe were as- 
sembled, and the Sorceress would proceed in what she had under- 
taken. 

A circle was drawn, into which none were admitted but those 
who were concerned in the proceedings. The wise men, or 
judges, were in one group, on one side of the circle; the Sorce- 
ress, and her witnesses, in another; and the Chief, Tamenend, and 
Photobrand, in a third. Thus situated, the Sorceress commenced 
by giving a detailed history of the circumstance of Ono-keo-co 
being brought into the tribe, as a captive; of her being adopted 
by the Chief; of the influence of her beauty on the hearts of 
Photobrand and Neomock; and of the quarrels that ensued be- 
tween the brothers, on account of the meanness of Photobrand, 
in stealing the affections of Ono-keo-co from Neomock, who had 
first loved her. She stated that Photobrand had estranged the 
heart of the beautiful flower of the forest from Neomock, by all 
manner of lying devices, and mentioned several circumstances 
which had transpired, and which were unknown even to the Chief. 
At this the crowd greatly marvelled, for they could not conceive 
how she could have known that which was unknown, even to the 
Chief, unless the Great Spirit had enlightened her mind. 

So much was Ono-keo-co distressed at the situation in which 
Photobrand was placed, that she was not suffered to appear at the 
trial, but kept confined in the wigwam. The Chief, who was de- 
votedly attached to her, feared that the condemnation of Photo- 
brand might come too suddenly upon her, and even he began now 
to believe that Photobrand would be proven guilty of the murder 
of his brother. 

The Sorceress had brought several men, and two women, to 
substantiate the guilt of the accused; all of whom were painted 
in the manner of the Indians, save that these were painted in the 



160 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

most grotesque and ludicrous fashion. The first, who was called 
up to testify, represented himself to be a bandit, and stated, that 
he had been employed by a Chief of the Canal Indians, to carry 
off Neomock alive, as he had killed in battle several relatives of 
the Chief. He stated, that he, with others, had come to the 
Brandywine with the view of suddenly seizing Neomock, when 
alone, and if they failed in that, to steal into his wigwam, at 
the dead of night, to gag, bind, and carry him off. After watch- 
ing some time in vain, they resolved, on one dark night, to enter 
his wigwam; but just as they were stealing up the rocks, having 
come down the Brandywine in a canoe, they saw a torch-light 
gleaming in the woods, and concealed themselves in the rocks to 
see who came. 

"We soon saw," said the narrator, "that the bearer of the torch 
was Photobrand, and that he was conducting a woman down the 
steep bank, in the direction in which we were concealed. We 
continued quiet, beneath the covert of a large rock, to watch the 
proceedings. They had passed but a few steps, when we heard 
other footsteps approaching, and venturing to look up, saw Neo- 
mock approaching. He mildly remonstrated with his brother, for 
having used him cruelly, when Photobrand placed the woman in 
the canoe ; pushed it from the shore ; and then furiously rushed 
upon his brother with uplifted tomahawk." 

"It is a lie," cried Photobrand, in a voice of thunder, and 
springing upon his feet, he brandished his knife; but he was in- 
stantly seized, and held, while the narrator proceeded. 

"Neomock, by a sudden leap, eluded the blow, and ran up the 
rocks, a short distance, begging his brother not to imbrue his 
hands in his brother's blood, nor render it necessary for him to 
stain his hands with his." 

As the narrator related this, a sensation ran through the assem- 
bly, and all eyes were turned in horror on Photobrand, who gritted 
his teeth with rage. 

"But," continued the narrator, "Photobrand rushed again upon 
his brother, who seized him in his arms, and, after disarming him, 
nobly gave him his life, at the same time handing the knife to him. 
This, instead of subduing him, as you all know it would have 
done, had he possessed a noble spirit, only rendered him more 
furious, and when Neomock saw that there was no generosity in 
him, and that he was determined to slay him, he resolved to stand 
in his own defence. 'Your blood be upon your own head,' said 
he, as Photobrand came full tilt upon him again. They clung, 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 1(5J 

fell, and rolled together down the hill into the water, the blood 
streaming from Neomock's wounds. By the light of the torch, 
which Photobrand had laid upon a rock near the shore, we could 
see them fighting, like dogs, in the water." 

A shudder ran through the assembly, as the narrator continued: 

"Photobrand would have soon been overpowered, had he not 
cut an artery in the arm of Neomock, from the rapid bleeding of 
which he soon fainted. No sooner did he faint, than Photobrand 
rose over him, and stabbed him to the heart, three times, while 
the blood of a brother gushed into his face." 

A cry of horror arose from the multitude, at these words; while 
Photobrand writhed, and wept with rage. 

"Go on, go on," cried several voices simultaneously. 

"No, no, it is enough," exclaimed the Chief, as he bursted into 
tears, "I am childless in my old age." The good Tamenend 
bowed his head, and wept with him for some time. 

All were now satisfied of the guilt of Photobrand, and many 
began to wander whether Kankinaw would have the courage to 
put his own son to death. He had declared, in the presence of 
the Great Spirit, that he should die, if found guilty; and now, in 
despite of the protestations of innocence by Photobrand, every 
one, save Ono-keo-co, believed him to be guilty. So well satisfied 
were they, that it was not considered necessary to examine any 
more witnesses. Photobrand bent his eye, with a scowling coun- 
tenance, upon the Sorceress and her attendants, but it was in vain 
that he declared them to be impostors who were, for some reason, 
plotting against his life. The Chief shook his head and wept, 
while Tamenend lamented that so brave a young warrior should 
be sacrificed to the manes of his murdered brother. 

When Ono-keo-co was informed of the fate of Photobrand, she 
raved; tore the long tresses of her hair, and rent her garments in 
the violence of her grief. Like Calypso, she could not be con- 
soled for the loss of her Ulysses, for well she knew that tyrant 
custom would doom him to death. The Chief repented that 
he had vowed, in the presence of the Great Spirit, that he should 
die, if pronounced guilty, which was now the case; and, notwith- 
standing Tamenend and Ono-keo-co plead, with prayers and tears, 
for the life of Photobrand, the Chief was inexorable, he having 
made the irrevocable vow. 

To Photobrand, death had no terror, apart from Ono-keo-co. 
The only pang to his brave soul was, that he must leave her, or 
that she must die too, for she had already concealed the knife, 
•21 



162 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

with which she intended to destroy herself and perish in his arms. 
Photobrand regretted that he must die with the stain of murder 
upon him, when he was entirely innocent, and he assured his father 
that, when he was dead, the truth would come to light, and show 
that he was guiltless. Kankinaw listened not to this, for he be- 
lieved it to be only the ingenious pleading for life. But he was 
touched by the tears and prayers of the beautiful Ono-keo-co, and 
regretted the necessity of closing his ears to her cries for mercy. 

The next day was fixed for the execution of Photobrand, and a 
vast assemblage gathered to witness the execution. He was to 
die by the tomahawk, which was considered the quickest and most 
merciful death. He was fastened to a stake, which had been 
driven in the ground, and several warriors were stationed, with 
tomahawks, at a few paces distance, who, at the word of com- 
mand, were to send their weapons through his skull to his brain, 
and their aim was certain death. 

Photobrand was thus situated, every moment expecting to feel 
the deadly tomahawk riving and rending asunder his skull, on its 
way to his brain ; when all were startled, in the solemn scene, by 
a loud cry, a wild scream ; and, the next moment, the form of 
Ono-keo-co was seen approaching the spot, with dishevelled hair 
and rent garments. No sooner did she approach, than two of the 
followers of the Sorceress gazed upon her, with a bewildered air, 
as if they had seen her before. One of them advanced towards 
her, while she was pleading for the life of Photobrand, and gazed 
in her face, acting, in the mean time, like one who is demented. 
At length he tore the painted mask from his face, and clasped her 
in his arms, crying out, in the most rapturous tones, 

"My daughter! my beloved Lelia! I have found you at last! 
Heaven be praised, I have found you at last!" 

In a moment Ono-keo-co recognized the face of her father, 
Nicholas Brabant. So soon as Brabant discovered that Photobrand 
was the betrothed of his daughter, he declared to the Chief that 
he was not guilty, and that a conspiracy was formed to take his 
life. 

"Seize on these wretches," said the Chief, and, in an instant, 
the Sorceress and her followers were arrested and confined. 

Brabant now informed Ono-keo-co, in the presence of Kanki- 
naw and Tamenend, that when she was carried off he went in 
pursuit of her, in company with the bandit. Lander, who betrayed 
him into the hands of a distant tribe, from whom, for a long time, 
he could not escape. That when he did escape, a short time 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 163 

before, he met the Sorceress, Kananka, in the forest, with those 
who were now prisoners. 

"She told me," continued Nick, "that if I would assist in a 
certain stratagem, I should be rewarded ; received into the tribe, 
and have many favors. I agreed, without knowing exactly what 
part I was to act. She then told me that there were two brothers, 
among the Delawares, sons of the Chief, who were both in love 
with a beautiful pale face, and that the object was to get rid of the 
favorite brother, that the other might possess the lovely Ono-keo- 
CO. The suspicion flashed across my mind that, as Ono-keo-co 
had been brought into the tribe as a captive, she might be my 
daughter." 

"It strikes me," said Tamenend, "that there is a deep laid 
scheme of treachery in this matter. Let the Sorceress and her 
followers be brought here, before us. My life as the forfeit, that 
Photobrand has been treacherously dealt with, and that his brother 
has laid a scheme to sacrifice him." 

"Ay," returned Photobrand, "you will find me innocent." 

The Chief now began to suspect that all was not fair, and or- 
dered that the Sorceress, and those with her, should be brought 
forth, to confront Brabant. The excitement, caused by this suspi- 
cion, spread among the tribe, and a great number gathered, to 
witness the result. When Kananka was brought out, there was a 
great change in her demeanor. Her boldness and confidence 
were gone, and fear was plainly visible upon her countenance. 
She hesitated, and frequently contradicted her own assertions; 
proving that a liar must be gifted with a good memory, in order to 
be successful in deception. 

"The intention, then," enquired Tamenend, "was to destroy 
Photobrand, that his brother might possess Ono-keo-co?" 

"That was the intention," replied Brabrant, "which she com- 
municated to me, after I had promised to assist, I did not intend 
that Photobrand should perish by such mean treachery, and should 
have exposed it, had I not discovered my daughter." 

"It appears, then," said Tamenend, " that Neomock is not dead, 
but has invented this treacherous scheme to destroy his brother, 
and thereby possess Ono-keo-co?" 

"Even so," returned Brabant. "She assured me that he was 
living, and that if he succeeded in obtaining the object of his 
affection, that I should hold a high rank in the tribe, and be amply 
rewarded. The whole story of the murder was invented, and the 
blood, discovered on the rocks, was placed there by design. It 



164 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

was the blood of a small animal, carried there and slaughtered at 
night. He had overheard the plan of the escape of the captive, 
and knew that the circumstance would favor his intention." 

At these words, a murmur ran through the assembly; the Chief 
and Tamenend, both, stared with mingled wonder and horror de- 
picted on their countenances; while the Sorceress, silent and 
abashed, stood as if spell-bound. 

"And Photobrand was to be sacrificed," muttered the Chief, as 
if musing, "that his cruel and ungenerous brother might possess 
the fair flower, whose affections Photobrand had nobly won." 

"I have it!" exclaimed Tamenend, rising from his seat with 
great energy, "I see through the base design! This Sorceress, 
this Kananka, who has imposed upon us, is no other than Neo- 
mock!" 

At these words of the sage Tamenend, a wild cry arose from the 
multitude, and many rushed forward to obtain a nearer view of the 
Sorceress. The Chief was astonished, confounded ; for such a 
thought had never entered his mind. 

" Let him be examined ;" cried Tamenend, " let him be stripped 
of all the strange ornaments and gear, and, my word for it, you 
shall find Neomock in disguise." 

The Sorceress was immediately taken to a wigwam; the long 
female hair was taken from his head; the painted m^sk was taken 
off; the female garb and gauds were doffed ; the dress of Neo- 
mock put on; and lo! Neomock, the identical Neomock, stood 
before the astonished multitude, looking more like a criminal than 
an accuser. A long, loud shout, rose from the strong lunged 
warriors; and the women set up a doleful howling, which was 
echoed, and re-echoed, along the rock-bound Brandywine. 

"Death to the traitor! death to Neomock!" broke from a hun- 
dred tongues, till echo caught the sound on her silver shell, and 
from a hundred hills came back the words — "Death to the traitor! 
Death to Neomock!" 

"And who are these," said the Chief, "who obeyed the will of 
Neomock, in dooming Photobrand to a guiltless grave? Who is 
he, who testified that Photobrand was guilty of murder?" 

" He is a bandit and a villain," exclaimed Brabant, " who treach- 
erously induced an Indian to carry off my daughter, and who, in 
the name of friendship, accompanied me in pursuit, and betrayed 
me into the hands of a distant tribe, among whom I was for years 
a captive. His name is Lander." 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 165 

"His villainy is known," said Tamenend, "and he shall meet 
the doom he merits." 

Lander, though a fierce and cruel man, was at heart a coward, 
and he trembled at the words of Tamenend. 

"Thank the Great Spirit," ejaculated the Chief, " Photobrand is 
innocent, and has been saved from a cruel, unmerited death!" 

Ono-keo-co was frantic with joy, and clung convulsively to Pho- 
tobrand, while Neomock gazed on them with a dark scowling 
countenance. He had been disappointed in the accomplishment 
of the dearest hope of his heart, and expected death as the pen- 
alty of his treachery; but fear did not subdue his fierce intractable 
soul, in which the fires of jealousy and revenge still burned. He 
envied every smile, every caress, every look of love, that Photo- 
brand received from Ono-keo-co. 

Brabant started, in company with some hunters, up the Brandy- 
wine, he being now a great favorite with the Chief, on a hunting 
expedition, provisions having become scarce. During their ab- 
sence, it was decreed by the Chief that, as the life of Photobrand 
had been so greatly endangered, the fate of Neomock, and his 
fellow-conspirators, should be placed in his hands, that he might 
mete out to them whatever punishment they deserved. Photobrand 
pitied his brother, and, notwithstanding his having conspired 
against his life, he could not think of pronouncing his death-war- 
rant. Neomock was too proud to beg his life, and declared that 
he would rather perish than see Ono-keo-co the wife of Photo- 
brand, or stoop to the mean alternative of begging for life. 

"Then take your life, unconditionally," said the generous Pho- 
tobrand, "I desire not to stain my hands with your blood. Go, 
and be happy, if you can. Ono-keo-co, uninfluenced by any one, 
has preferred me, and why should you complain? The Great 
Spirit has willed that she shall be mine." 

Neomock, without deigning to reply, turned upon his heel, and 
stalked sullenly away. But the Chief was not disposed to let him 
escape entirely without punishment, A council was called, and 
it was decreed that Neomock should be disgraced, and banished 
from the tribe. This sentence he heard unmoved, and he suddenly 
conceived the idea of carrying Ono-keo-co with him. Accord- 
ingly, after he had taken a formal leave, he concealed himself 
among the rocks and bushes, and that night watched for an op- 
portunity to seize the object of his idolatry. 

According to her usual custom, Ono-keo-co strayed alone on 
the romantic banks of the Brandywine, then far more wild and 



166 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD, 

picturesque than at present. The sun had sunk in golden glory 
behind the western hills, and the full round moon hung, like a 
silver chandelier, in the great hall of heaven, as she wandered 
among the green glades, and watched the waters, illumined by the 
moon's rays, as they rippled over the rocky bed of that romantic 
stream. 

Photobrand was sauntering on behind, unseen. Suddenly a 
scream pierced the ear of Photobrand, and, looking up, he beheld 
Neomock running up the steep ascent, just opposite where the 
upper dam is now, with Ono-keo-co in his arms. She had uttered 
but one scream, for she fainted at the moment that she recognized 
Neomock. Being unencumbered, Photobrand rapidly pursued, 
and gained on him, for love lent wings to the pursuer. 

Before Neomock reached the top of the declivity, finding that 
Photobrand was close upon him, he laid down the apparently life- 
less form of Ono-keo-co, and drew his knife for a desperate con- 
flict, resolved to carry her off, or perish in the attempt. He did 
not wait for Photobrand to approach, but ran at him, making a 
deadly thrust with his knife. This was parried, or rather dodged, 
and so great was his impetus, that he fell, pitching over a high 
rock, head foremost. He did not move, after he fell, and when 
Photobrand approached, he found that his unfortunate brother had 
broken his neck, and was dead. 

This scene had been witnessed by Brabant, and the party of 
hunters and trappers, who were returning, loaded with game. In 
a cave, far up the Brandywine, Brabant had discovered his wife, 
the mother of Ono-keo-co, which she had made her home since 
her escape. Great was the rejoicing of Ono-keo-co, when she re- 
vived from her fainting fit, to find that her father and mother were 
both restored to her, after years of separation. 

The fate of Neomock was communicated to the people, but 
very little sympathy was felt, as he was an outlaw, and had been 
banished in disgrace. Photobrand and Ono-keo-co were united, 
according to the custom of the Indians, and great pomp and cere- 
mony were observed. The bride was adorned with all the glitter 
of a princess; literally covered with beads, and beautified with the 
most gaudy ribbands and feathers. Tamenend gave her, in the 
name of her father, to Photobrand, and then blessed them; after 
which were commenced feasting, dancing, and various games. 
Some fire-water, the curse of the Indians, as well as white men, 
had been procured, and the happy Chief became so extremely 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 167 

happy, that it was necessary to carry him to his wigwam. He was 
superlatively drunk. 

Brabant became a great man among the Delawares, and Lander, 
forgiTen by Photobrand, became domesticated in the tribe. Never, 
perhaps, was there a happier pair than Photobrand and Ono-keo- 
co. She had been placed among the Indians at so early an age, 
that their customs seemed natural and familiar. From this pair 
sprung some of the most distinguished warriors and statesmen 
that ever shed renown upon the tribe, and, though the Delawares 
have dwindled to a mere handful, comparatively, yet the descend- 
ants of Ono-keo-co may be found among them to this day. It is 
with a melancholy regret, a sorrowful feeling, that I contemplate 
the day, not far distant, when the last Indian, of the once power- 
ful and numerous tribe of the Delawares, shall gather up his feet, 
and go down to the tomb of his ill-fated race. When I wander 
on the romantic banks of the Brandywine, I fancy that I see their 
dusky forms and bark canoes; that I hear the death-song on the 
breeze ; and that I listen to the war-whoop, as it rings through the 
woods, and reverberates among the far off rocks. But alas ! they 
are not there — those sublime solitudes have been silent, and un- 
broken by the voice of the Indian, for ages. They will never again 
be trodden by the lords of the forest. 



Conrtnhh Mertion. 

She still denied the passion in her heart 

Even to herself, the' fond affection there 

Had long been deep enshrined. Her modest soul 

Shrunk from the sweet acknowledgment and oft, 

As to the tree her letter she conveyed 

With soft and stealthy step, a blush would spread 

Upon her cheek, when even she thought she loved. 

One day she went, and lo! the httle god 

Revealed himself, and love stood there confessed. 

The tell-tale boy, with finger on his lip, 

And bow in hand, surveyed her for a while, 

And then with sweet provoking smile, he said — 

"I've caught you Miss, at last, tho' long evaded — ' 

And a swift arrow quivered m her heart. 



168 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



A romantic tale of other times, in the manner of the old English ballads. 



DEDICATED TO THE FAIR MRS. E . 

In Paris' noble city, in the days of olden date, 

There lived a proud old nobleman in all the pomp of state; 

He trod the halls of grandeur, for great wealth had he in store, 

A lovely daughter, too, he had — what could he wish for more? 

In the castle of her father did this bhssful beauty dwell, 
And her vassals always called her the fair Lady Isabel; 
Her eyes were dark and dazzling, and as diamonds were briglit, 
And her lips were red as roses, when they open to the light. 

Her lofty brow, and heav'nly smile, were lovely to behold, 
Her auburn hair in clust'ring curls hung down like grapes of gold, 
Upon a bosom beautiful as bosom e'er could be, 
That rose and fell like billows on the bosom of the sea. 

Her form was symmetry itself, e'en lovely as her face, 

In every airy step there was a gleam of Grecian grace; 

Her very hand could charm the soul, her shoe had pow'r to wound, 

For such a lovely little foot ne'er trod upon the ground. 

Unto the castle halls there came the proudest of the land, 
To bow befoi-e her beauty, and to woo her haughty hand; 
But from them all she turn'd away, as many legends tell, 
For Love had not unlock 'd the heart of Lady Isabel. 

The silken chain had never yet been bound around her heart. 
And she was all unused to tricks of treachery and art; 
She was no cold coquette, yet she was proud as Peries are. 
And therefore, she disdain 'd to hear a lover's pressing pray'r. 

When many a wounded heart had fled away from her cold glance, 
There came an humble lover, but the noblest heart in France; 
A soul of deathless honor, and undying truth had he, 
But he was poor, obscure in birth, and of a low degree. 

She prized his soul of honor, but she scorn 'd his humble birth. 
And oft she felt a pity that she could not own his worth; 
But he look'd not upon her wealth, or noble house of old, 
He prized her for herself alone; and not for paltry gold. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 169 

Twas in a banquet hall he first beheld her fairy form, 

Where many a gay enamor'd knight did round her beauty swarm; 

But Ion only stood and gazed upon her heavenly charms, 

And, while he gazed, he sigh'd to clasp the angel in his arms. 

Her dark and dazzling eyes of light in softness on him fell. 
And madly in his heart he loved the Lady Isabel; 
Then in her father's castle he bow'd down before her feet. 
And vow'd the love he bore for her was exquisitely sweet. 

But Lady Isabel was cold, his worth she could not see, 
And yet she felt a sorrow that he was of low degree; 
And oft she doubted what he said, when Ion madly sworej 
That for her sake he'd sacrifice the very life he borCi 

Still at her side she suflfer'd him her footsteps to attend. 
And tho' she loved him not she look'd upon him as a friend; 
Indeed her only deep regret was now his humble birth j 
For soon she felt he had a heart the noblest on the earths 

Oh! Pride, what tyranny is thine! How many a heart has bled 
At thy decrees! How many a tear on thy account is shed ! 
How many a noble soul, by thee, is doom'd to pine in woe, 
And the fruition of blest hope, on earth to never know. 

Still Ion woo'd and strove to win the Lady Isabel, 
But still she smiled not on his suit, nor broke the magic spell; 
He swore by all the stars in heav'n, by all the things of earth. 
If she would wed with him that he would win a noble birth. 

He said the love he bore for her no tongue on earth could tell. 
More than the wealth of worlds he loved the Lady Isabel; 
That for her sake he'd risk his life — her wealth he did not crave, 
But still the Lady Isabel in doubt an answer gave. 

One day within the palace of the Tuilleries he stray 'd, 

And sat down in the gallery to woo the doubting maid; 

'Twas o'er the king's menagerie, where wild beasts were in charge, 

And, in the ample yard below, a lion roam'd at large. 

Still Ion pour'd into the ear of Lady Isabel, 

The vows of his undying ftiith, and fond affection's spell; 

And as he press'd her small white hand, and gazed into her eye. 

She thought that she his love would test; his faith for once would try. 

And as he breath 'd to her again, the vow so true and strong, 
That he would risk his life for her, which she had doubted long; 
She drop'd a diamond ring below, just where the lion roved. 
And beg'd him to obtain it, if he still as truly loved. 

22 



170 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

She said she valued it above ail other gauds of earth, 
Her mother gave it, vrhen she died; therefore, she prized its worth; 
And if he'd bring it back to her, his vowrs she would beheve; 
Nor think, in aught he said, that he intended to deceive. 

Brave Ion saw the object of this cruel sacrifice, 
And soon resolved to have the ring, or perish 'neath her eyes; 
His soul of honor sigh *d to show that he to faith was true, 
And up he rose, and took her hand, and bade a fond adieu. 

Down to the iron gate he went, all fearless as before. 
And enter'd where that lion large sent forth an awful roar; 
He now desired alone to prove, and prove the matter well, 
That he had never breath 'd false vows to Lady Isabel. 

The lion paw'd the earth, prepared to leap upon his prey. 
But Ion caught his eye and gazed, as on he took his way; 
The beast, astonish'd, backward drew, as he approach 'd the ring, 
Then, creeping forward, still pursued, but never dared to spring. 

Still in his eye did Ion stare, as, backward, he withdrew, 
Till thro' the gate he leap'd, and Bwung the massy portal to; 
The Lady Isabel could scarce her own bright eyes believe, 
Tho' now she loved, and never more could think he would deceive. 

His faith and fond affection she indeed had sorely tried, 
And now she did regret that she had yielded to her pride; 
She saw that he was brave and true, and worthy of her hand. 
And vow'd, in her own bosom, it was all at his command. 

But, ah ! he saw that she possess'd a heart as hard as stone. 
And cruel, too, to jeopardize a life dear as her own; 
He wept to think that she, whose smiles had been the light of life. 
Was all unworthy to be woo'd, or wedded as his wife. 

Brave Ion bore the brilliant ring to Lady Isabel, 

And, as he gazed into her eyes, he breath 'd a last farewell; 

" A heart so cruel as thine own, so doubting, too," he said, 

'• I would not for the wealth of worlds, and all thy beauty, wed." 

'Twas Ion's time to triumph now, and Isabel's to know 
The pangs of slighted love, which give the heart the keenest woe; 
For of all woes that life endures, none, none so madly burn. 
As to be doom'd to love and find, alas ! no fond return. 

She clung to him convulsively, but from her grasp he tore 
Himself away, and sadly sought the dim and distant shore; 
Soon, soon, on board a ship, he rode upon the distant main. 
And ne'er to Lady Isabel did he return again. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Despairing in her love for him, she wander'd o'er the wave, 
In search of him she fondly loved, but only found his grave; 
Upon his tomb she found these words, as they the story tell, 
" Here Ion sleeps — he died for love of Lady Isabel." 

And since that day, at evening's hour, she wanders on the shore; 
Gazing, with tearful eyes afar, the bounding billows o'er; 
Crazed in her mind, she thinks, upon the distant wave, she sees 
The ship that bears her Ion back, all bending to the breeze. 

But never more shall he return — the cruelty she gave, 
Froze up the current of his soul, a soul so nobly brave; 
Nor long did she regret his fall — all faded in her bloom. 
She pined and perish 'd, and she sleeps in an untimely tomb. 

Take warning, oh! ye fair, nor tread upon affection's flower, 
Lest, when ye shall repent, ye find too late repentance' hour; 
Spurn not a noble heart, nor let pride in your bosoms dwell, 
Lest ye should meet the fate that met fair Lady Isabel. 



17t 



/ome. 



High on the crimson car of fame, 

I saw the victor ride. 
He came from far thro' flood and flame, 

In all the pomp of pride; 
And loud the war-trump pierced the skies, 

All hail the conqueror comes. 
From every hill let shouts arise, 

And sound ye doubling drums. 

The crimson crown the conqueror wore. 

Waved o'er the warrior's head; 
But his right arm was red with gore 

A hundred hearts had shed: 
A hundred hills in echoes rung 

O'er ocean's sounding surge; 
A hundred harps awoke and sung 

Of Europe's dreadful scourge. 

They sung the fame of him whose scroll 

A tide of tears had wet; 
They sung the fame of him whose soul 

Had oft in murder met; 



172 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

And oft had spread dark midnight o'er 
The weeping widow's mind, 

And wrote her grief with gushing gore, 
Dread vampire of mankind. 

Not so with him who wore the plume 

When fair Columbia bled; 
The sun that set on Vernon's tomb 

Smiled on the mighty dead; 
The blood that dyed Columbia's land 

Was paid for liberty — 
The great, the good and glorious band. 

The western world set free. 

The scroll of him who sleeps in death. 

Gave hberty a name; 
And virtuous heroes then had birth, 

And virtuous valor, fame — 
Gore gushed thro' many a hundred veins 

On that immortal morn; 
Great God ! 'twas then were rent the chains 

Of millions yet unborn. 



€^t Ir^am. 



While yet I slept, in soft repose, 

The trump of time I heard ! 
And louder still at every close, 

Came down the dreadful word ! 
I started up and saw the sky 

Wrapped in a robe of red ! 
An angel stood and woke on high 

The trumpet of the dead. 

I asked the orient orb of light 

From whence the clangor came; 
And swift it rolled, in realms of night, 

Thro ' seas of frightful flame ! 
I asked the pale moon if she knew 

Why thus the angel stood; 
She answered not, but from my view 

Went down in waves of blood. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 173 

I asked the burning stars, and they 

Fell from their orbits high ! 
I saw the lightning o'er me play, 

And flame along the sky ! 
1 asked the angry ocean too 

Why she in rage did roar; 
And quick she rolled before my view, 

Her miUions to the shore! 

And then I saw with dazzled eyes, 

A flaming chariot driven ! 
The wheels with thunder shook the skies 

And rocked the halls of heaven ! 
I asked the clouds from whence He came. 

O'er whom the red flames curled; 
They cried Jehovah is his name. 

He comes to judge the world. 

I saw him seize a flaming brand 

And fire creation o'er; 
The sky, the ocean, and the land. 

All mingled in the roar! 
And at the last loud trumpet's sound, 

I woke with one wild scream; 
A poor musquito then I found. 

Had caused my dreadful dream. 



The tongue of woman charms the soul, 

With all the strains of love; 
'Tis like the lyre whose numbers roll. 

In yonder halls above: 
And 0, it hath a charm to bind, 

Even when it aims the dart; 
It is the echo of the mind, 

The tell-tale of the heart. 

The eye of woman sheds a ray. 

To gild the gloom of woe; 
To man it lights a constant day — 

Of happiness below; 
It is the lamp of life and light, 

The source of joy refined; 
It is the star of sorrow's night. 

The mirror of the mind. 



C|e Jream 0f ^aht. 



" Hereby hangs a tale — I'll tell it." — Shaespeare. 

.FEW years ago T boarded in a very pleasant 
^family in Baltimore, in the social society of 
which I spent some of the happiest days of my 
life. Gaiety, cheerfulness and enjoyment were 
I the objects of the circle that surrounded me, 
and it was peculiarly grateful after a day devoted 
to hard study, to unbend my mind amid bright 
eyes, rosy faces, and sylph-like forms. Among 
the fair portion of the boarders (and it is well 
known to the reader that I am particularly par- 
tial to the society of the fair sex) were two 
Spanish ladies, and a lady from the palmy plains 
of the South, to whom, in friendship, I became 
particularly attached. The deep, dark, dazzling 
eyes of the Spanish ladies seemed to have a 
Mesmeric influence, for when they were once 
fixed upon a susceptible young man he stood 
fascinated by a spell or charm, as does the bird when it comes 
within the magic influence of the eye of the serpent. 

I have mentioned these ladies, however, only incidentally. The 
heroine of my story is the lady from the sunny South. If a beauti- 
ful creature, ever walked this earth, she was one. She was a 
charming brunette, of the middle stature, her form moulded to 
exquisite symmetry; indeed so exquisite, that neither Michael 
Angelo nor Canova could ever have rivalled in marble its graceful 
outlines. She was like Milton's Eve — 

" Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye, 
In every gesture, dignity and love." 

Her eyes were dark and brilliant as the diamond set in jet; 
large, melting, and melancholy, and her black hair hung in clus- 




WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 175 

tering curls down her swan-Jike neck. Her cheeks were red as 
the lotus on the rivers of the east, but her mouth — ye gods! it 
was chisseled with a beauty of form and expression that far ex- 
celled that of the famed Venus de Medicis. 

But enough of description. It is enough to say that she was 
generally considered extremely beautiful, for every look was lan- 
guage, and every lineament was love. It is necessary to observe, 
that her intellect was of a high order; she was very imaginative, 
and had written some very beautiful poems, though she did not 
pay much devotion to the Muses, as she was young, beautiful, 
and giddy, and fond of the beau monde. 

Many of the dashing dandies of Baltimore fluttered, like butter- 
flies, round the lovely flower, but her heart remained untouched. 
The winged arrow of love had never entered her bosom ; she was 
still the same gay and giddy creature. 

In the city I had a particular friend, who I knew was, like my- 
self, a passionate admirer of female beauty, and devotedly attached 
to female society. Henry Darnley was an uncommonly handsome 
man, and I resolved, as Cupid had spent all his fury on me in 
earlier years, to introduce him to the celebrated beauty, Isabel 
Summerville, the most agreeable lady in her mind and manners 
that I have ever met. 

" Come, Henry," said I, one evening at the Museum, " you have 
seen all the curiosities here a hundred times, come along with me, 
and I will show you one you have never seen, and one upon which 
you will never grow tired of gazing." 

"What is it?" asked Henry, with a careless air. 

"One of the most beautiful ladies you have ever seen." 

"Then by Jupiter," he exclaimed, seizing my arm, "I'll go to 
Halifax for a sight like that." 

As we walked down to the street in which I boarded, I gave 
him a glowing description of Isabel, until his imagination was 
fired with her charms. But when he entered the parlor, and she 
stood revealed before him in the full blaze of her beauty, he felt 
that his fancy had not done justice to her loveliness. Isabel and 
Henry were both polished in their manners, communicative and 
easy in conversation. The Spanish ladies having retired, I left 
them together, and that evening a mutual regard sprung up be- 
tween them; a regard that ripened into devoted affection, for they 
seemed fitted for each other by nature and education. 

In a short time after this meeting Henry resolved to take board 
in the house for the sake of my society, but Isabel, the fair Isabel, 



176 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

was the centre of attraction. It was for the sake of seeing her fre- 
quently every day that he was so willing to change his residence. 
And there he did see her every day, and not many months elapsed 
ere they were betrothed in marriage, and a more graceful couple 
never were destined to stand at the altar. Isabel became entirely 
changed by the feelings which had been awakened in her heart. 
Instead of the wild romping gaiety of former days she became 
sedate and thoughtful, and instead of wandering in search of so- 
ciety and amusement she remained in solitude, or spent her mo- 
ments in the presence of him who had won her affections, and 
who had become all the world to her. I have never in all my 
wanderings seen two persons so devotedly attached, and who 
seemed so willing to sacrifice every thing to each other's happiness. 
The reason was, there was a communion of soul. 

Isabel Summerville was the only heir and orphan daughter of a 
rich planter in Louisiana, and having nothing to bind her to the 
South, had travelled in company with an old gentleman, a friend 
of her father, to see the country, and being pleased with the 
manners of the people of Baltimore, who are famed for their ur- 
banity and familiarity, she resolved to spend some time in that city, 
little dreaming that she would there first fall into the dream of love. 

Henry Darnley was a young gentleman of some property, which 
he invested in various ways. He had an interest in the new 
steamboat, Medora, which had recently been finished, and was to 
go down the bay on a trip as a trial of her speed, as it was boasted 
that she was superior to any other. 

On the day before that on which the marriage was to take place, 
Isabel was sitting in a large-armed rocking-chair in the parlor. 
Around her were strewn the paraphernalia of her wedding-dress, 
for she had that morning been visited by milliners, mantua-makers, 
and merchant's clerks, innumerable. She laid down a gorgeous 
cap, covered with the most costly laces, threw her finely formed 
head back on the chair, and for a moment seemed lost in reverie. 
She seemed to be thinking of the morrow ; of the many happy 
days she was to enjoy with the man of her choice, in the language 
of Dr. Young, 

"Sinking from thought to thought a vast profound." 

Suddenly the door was opened, and Henry Darnley entered. 

"Dearest Isabel," said he, "the speed of the steamboat Medora 
is to be tried to-day, and as I am interested, T am going on board. 
I shall not leave you long." 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 177 

Isabel softly pressed his hand between both of hers, and he gaily 
left the room. In the course of an hour a loud explosive sound, 
as of an earthquake, shook the city and startled the beautiful 
Isabel. In a few minutes she heard the citizens tramping ra- 
pidly on the street, and flying to and fro with the awful cry — 
"The steamboat Medora has just blown up, and nearly all on 
board are killed, wounded or scalded." She leaped from her 
chair, ran to the window, in wild affright, and as she beheld the 
thousands of anxious citizens rushing to the wharf to see whose 
friends were killed, and as the recollection that the last words 
Henry had spoken were, that he was going on board the boat 
rushed upon her mind, she staggered back to the chair, covered 
her face with her hands, as if to shut out the horrid scene, and 
in the attempt to breathe a prayer for his safety, she fainted and 
remained insensible some time. When consciousness was restored, 
she heard the tramping of thousands of feet on the pave returning 
from the awful scene where so many had been blown to atoms, and 
she heard the groans of the dying, as their friends were bearing 
them home, some praying for death, while others were begging 
their friends to put a period to their existence and their sufferings. 

Isabel, in a perfect state of delirium, arose and staggered to the 
window, though she scarcely knew whither she was going or for 
what purpose. Her ideas were confused, and all she knew was 
that the next day was her wedding-day, and that he who was the 
idol of her heart was on the board of the ill-fated Medora. Her 
eyes wandered with a vacant stare up and down South street, 
which is the great thoroughfare to and from the wharf, and thou- 
sands were moving, some weeping in subdued grief, while others 
were exclaiming in the bitter accents of despair. She saw fathers 
and mothers following the pale corpse of a darling and devoted 
son, who had promised to be the staff and stay of their declining 
years; and she beheld a family of children, clinging to the body 
of a dying father, as he was borne along upon a litter. Her 
head reeled, as reels one who is inebriated. — She gazed again 
down the street, to see if she could catch a glimpse of Henry 
amid the vast multitude, while his last words at parting rung in 
her ears — "I shall not leave you long." 

Still she saw them bear along the dead and dying — still the cry 
of distress reached her ear from every part of the city, which was 
now wrapped in universal gloom. Many of the noblest citizens, 
who had gone forth in the morning full of life and hope, had been 
doomed to perish on board that ill-fated boat; the mangled remains 
23 



178 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

of some of whom could not be recognized by the features, while 
others were left to groan in anguish and despair- 
Still did the almost frantic Isabel continue to gaze down the 
street to catch a glimpse of Henry. But in vain — he came not. 
Corpse after corpse was carried by and still Henry did not appear. 
Urged at times to despair, she seized her bonnet and resolved to 
fly to the dreadful scene of destruction; but what could a delicate 
lady do hemmed in by such an immense mass of beings as crowded 
the street? She looked again, and found that only a body at long 
intervals was carried by. Hope dawned upon her mind. 

"My Henry must be safe," she cried, "or they would have 
brought him home before this hour." 

Scarcely had the words died away upon her lips, than the wild 
and appalling cry at the door met her ear — 

"Make room for the dead — stand aside!" 

She convulsively looked below, as the wind swept the handker- 
chief from his face. She caught a glimpse of his bruised and 
bleeding brow, and as they bore the body into the passage, she 
recognized the once beautiful, though now blackened features, of 
Henry Darnley, who the very next day was to become her happy 
husband. A film came over her eyes; a dizziness in her head; 
she staggered across the room towards the door, and fell swooning 
across a chair. 

And oh! ye fair ones, who among you would have been less 
affected at such an hour and such a scene? There lay her splen- 
did bridal dress beside her chair, made more splendid at the earnest 
request of Henry, that she might appear at her wedding in more 
brilliant attire than her maids or any of the guests. There lay 
the very mementos of him whom her soul adored, but who now 
lay in the next room cold and stift' in death. Such a scene was 
calculated to touch any heart, but much more one like hers, so full 
of melting sensibility and love. 

In the course of an hour she seemed to revive, but Isabel, the 
lovely Isabel, was no longer the same being. The fire that once 
flashed from her brilliant eyes had departed, and a cold, dead, 
vacant gaze alone remained. The cheek and lip that once rivalled 
the rose had lost their bloom, and she looked more like the spirit 
of the beauty that she had been, than the reality. Reason seemed 
reeling upon her throne ready to tumble into ruins. She wan- 
dered from room to room, and examined with curious gaze every 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 179 

memento of him who a little while ago was full of life and beauty, 
but was now prostrate in the arms of death. A cold shudder 
passed over her frame, and a shower of tears succeeded it, when- 
ever she passed the room where his unfortunate body lay. 

Poor Isabel! the day-dream of her happiness had departed like 
the mist of the morning — the brilliant anticipations she had cher- 
ished as the charm of her existence, were gone like the earthly 
hopes of happy childhood — the fond affection she had nurtured 
as a delicate flower had faded, and she found herself a wreck on 
life's dark tide; her happiness in one ill-fated hour blighted; her 
hopes blasted; and her heart the solitary tomb of love. Oh! ye, 
whose affections have never been crushed in the hour of consum- 
mation — ye, who have never seen your hopes take wing, like 
summer birds for Southern skies, little do ye know of that utter 
desolation of heart which now prostrated the once gay, volatile 
and fascinating Isabel. It has been truly said by a celebrated 
philosopher, that Nature always deals in extremes; that the most 
volatile and lively people, when cast down by misfortune, are the 
most miserable. This aphorism is exemplified among the French. 
They are the most volatile people on earth, and yet there are more 
suicides among them than in any other nation. The English are 
more equable in their temperament. 

So it was with poor Isabel Summerville ; she was either extremely 
happy or extremely miserable, and indeed in the present instance, 
how could she be any other than the latter? She had seen her 
heart's holiest hopes decay in the morning of her young existence, 
and the blossoms of her first love perish in an untimely tomb. 

On the morning of the third day, the funeral of Henry was to 
take place. At eleven o'clock the friends of the deceased and 
the invited public were assembling, and soon the large parlor, and 
the room where the corpse lay, were filled with persons in deep 
mourning, many of whom, through curiosity, had been attracted 
there by the fame of Isabel's beauty, for Henry and herself, when 
seen on the street, had been called the handsomest and most 
graceful pair in the city. 

The reader may imagine the astonishment of the assembled 
multitude, when Isabel came down into the room where the corpse 
was, not dressed in mourning, but arrayed in all the gorgeousness of 
her bridal dress, with her costly cap and tiara of diamonds upon her 
head. She gazed around the room with a vacant stare, while the 
crowd moved away from her with that instinctive dread that some 
people have when approached by a deranged person. The lids of 



180 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

the head of the coffin were thrown back upon their hinges, and the 
face of the corpse revealed only covered with a fold of the snowy 
shroud. She advanced to the side of the splendid coffin, and 
taking hold of one of the silver handles, knelt down beside it in 
the attitude of prayer, though her wild eyes wandered backwards 
and forwards from one end of the coffin to the other. During 
this scene, which caused many to shudder with apprehension, not 
a tear was in her eye, and not a sigh upon her lip. The fountain 
of feeling seemed to have been dried up by the excess of grief. 
She slowly arose from her knees ; turned back the shroud ; and, 
clasping her hands in an attitude of anguish, stood for some time 
gazing with so ghastly a countenance, that some of the younger 
persons near her were frightened and moved to another part of 
the room. She placed her hand upon his cold brow, as if musing 
upon the mutability of human life, and the terrific ravages of death, 
while her bosom heaved with tumultuous emotions. At length 
she suddenly exclaimed, with a shrill accent — "It is, it is my 
Henry, oh! basely, basely murdered!" and fell across the body in 
a partial state of insensibility. 

The undertaker now entered to screw up the coffin, and en- 
deavored softly to lead her from the room, but she clung to the 
dead body and steadily refused to leave it. Her hands were 
gently unloosed and she was led to a chair. She watched the 
undertaker as he screwed down the lids; she saw them lift the 
coffin from the table to bear it to the hearse on the street; she 
saw the mourners moving onward, and tearing the splendid cap 
and tiara of diamonds from her head ; she rushed to the stairway 
to catch a last glimpse of the coffin. She leaned over the banis- 
ters, and gazed along the passage, until she saw the coffin depo- 
sited in the hearse and heard the carriage wheels rolling over the 
street. The thought that she should see her Henry no more 
flashed upon her disordered brain, and she uttered, as she fell, one 
piercing scream that rung through the whole house. 

'•For heaven's sake, Miss Isabel," I exclaimed, throwing the last 
novel I had been reading nearly out of the window, " what is the 
matter? have you been dreaming?" 

"Oh! yes, sir," said she, "I could not sleep last night, and this 
morning falling asleep in my chair, I have had a dream of love''' 

I fell back in my chair, and gave myself up to convulsive laughter 
at the ludicrous scene. At the sound of the scream the two 
Spanish ladies, who were deeply absorbed in reading Cervantes, 
had leaped from their chairs into the middle of the parlor, and 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 181 

were shouting at the top of their voices, "0 los Dios! O los 
Dios!" The screaming and shouting brought the family, servants 
and apprentices in the shop below, to see what was the matter. 

Notwithstanding the Dream of Love, I was at the wedding, 
next day, of tlie beautiful Isabel Summerville, and a lovelier bride 
was never led to the altar. 

Note — The explosion of the steamboat Medora, the cause of the dream, 
had occurred nearly a week before. 



leat[i d Miirlonougfi, 

He sleeps in the cradle of freedom and glory, 
And the wings of the eaigle o'ershadow his grave; 

His deeds are renowned on the pages of story, 
Coequal with fame, and the fate of the brave. 

While the surge of Champlain, in its wild murmur roaring, 
Shall continue to sparkle and foam in the sun, 

So long shall his fame, still exalted, be soaring. 
And brighten still brighter as ages shall run. 



At his shrine shall the hero bow down in devotion. 
When the tempests of war in destruction shall rave; 

When the cannon of carnage shall wake the deep ocean, 
And the flag of America's triumph shall wave. 

From his ashes shall rise, like a new-born creation. 

The heirs of true valor and virtue alone; 
The heroes that shine in the lists of a nation. 

Like MacDonough in peace and in war ever shone. 

He sleeps on the cold and comfortless pillow. 
Where silence and darkness their vigils long hold; 

On the trident of Neptune beneath the dark billow, 
His name is inscribed in bright letters of gold. 

In the hearts of his countrymen long, long shall linger. 
The memory of him who has fought for their fame; 

The poet shall lend to the harp the soft finger. 
And Delaware boast of his generous name. 

He has gone to the land of the saints and the sages, 
The land of the good, and the blest, and the brave; 

His fame is inscribed on eternity's pages — 

His day brightly dawns on the gloom of the grave. 



182 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



€^t (Bxnhm of (loL 



He rides on the clouds, where the eagle is soaring, — 
Where Franklin's bold hand wields the lightning afar; 

Where the thunder of heaven is awfully roaring. 
And the whirlwinds are wheeling His beautiful car ! 

When the storm, like a maniac, moans o'er the ocean, 
And night's sable mantle envelopes the skies. 

All Nature, before Him, bows down in devotion, 
And the gods of the deep to His chariot rise ! 

High on the frame of the universe standing. 
His eye glances thro' the deej) regions of space; 

With the voice of His power the planets commanding, 
All glowing in glory that beams from His face ! 

His name, on the skies, is in brilliancy beaming. 

Nor the scathe of the lightning can tarnish its glare. 

While the stars thro' the trackless area are streaming, 
It shall shine in its beauty — its radiancy there ! 

He is Monarch of worlds, and of wealth, and of power. 
He can shake the foundations of Nature, or sweep 

In promiscuous ruin creation's bold tower. 
And re-thunder the dreadful abyss of the deep ! 

His voice is tiie storm, 'tis the bellowing thunder. 
That rolls in its revelry down the dark skies; 

And His glance is the lightning that strikes us with wonder, 
As it frightfully flames from His radiant eyes ! 

His throne is the heavens. His footstool the planets. 
The sun His bright lamp, and His residence, space; 

The sky is His crown, and the stars are His coronets. 
Love His best treasure. His charity, grace! 

He rides on the clouds, where tiie eagle is soaring, — 
Where Rittcnhouse roves with the silvery star; 

Where the thunder of heaven is awfully roaring. 
And the whirlwinds are wheeling His beautiful car. 



Cljf §irt| 0f €\xhi. 



WRITTEN BY REQUEST, ON CHRISTMAS DAY. 




HE brilliant orb which rises on this memorable 
jmorn, shedding light upon a benighted world, 
lis a type of that more glorious luminary, which 
I arose in beauty on Bethlehem, and went down 
in blood on Calvary. Behold the infant Saviour ! 
Behold the herald of heaven, and the harbinger 
of hope and future happiness ! Behold the great 
emancipation of a wicked world! Methinks I 
see the shouting shepherds flying to and fro, 
with the glad tidings that a child is born whose 
virtues shall bequeath to them the rich inheri- 
tance of hereafter. Methinks I see the admiring 
multitude, crowding round the manger to catch 
a glimpse of that glorious being, who had come 
into the world, not to propagate his gospel like 
Mahomet, with the sword, but with his blood to 
baptize all nations. 
What a destiny is his! Born in a land of peace, and nursed in 
the lap of persecution, we behold him at one time the pride of 
the pulpit, adorned with all the dignity of a man, and with all the 
glory of a God, every knee bowing before him, and every heart 
paying out its homage; while at another, we see him the scorn, 
the scoff and mirth of the multitude, his head covered with a 
crown of thorns, his temple a dungeon, and his future destiny a 
lingering ignominious death on the cross. But he trembled not 
at the taunts of the multitude, or the tyranny of the magistrate. 
Magnanimous amid the ruin that surrounded him, he stood the 
hope of this world, and the harbinger of a better; welcoming the 
bitter cup that contained the price of universal emancipation. 
He crouched not at the footstool of power, nor fed and fattened 
on the plundered property of the people. But, he came as a 



184 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

father to the fatherless, a pattern to the rich, a pastor to the poor; 
as a balm to the blind, and a beacon to the benighted and forlorn. 
In a word, he came to save the sinner, and redeem the world. 
The accumulated calumnies of fhe wicked, and the worthless ar- 
rows of envy, and the daggers of defamation fell harmless against 
the breast-plate of his piety; and the world's passions, instead of 
stirring him to revenge, only roused him to the exercise of virtue, 
and to the promulgation of the gospel which he came to establish. 
A man of sorrow and suffering, he appealed not to the passions and 
prejudices of the multitude. He offered not his blessing to the Pa- 
gan priest as the pay of his apostacy from the faith of his fathers. 
But he taught a morality and religion fairer than the pages of So- 
crates and Seneca; a doctrine fraught with the noblest precepts, 
and a practice that ever served as a model for man. He sought not 
to dazzle the imaginations of men with the splendor of eloquence 
or the pomp of philosophy. He drew not his morality from the 
temples of Grecian genius, or his inspiration from the tombs of 
Roman learning. Superior to all, and opposed to that system 
from whence the Kantian philosophy sprung, he breathed but the 
inspired spirit of his father. 

What an object of admiration ! With all the grandeur of a 
God, and with all the mind of a man; at one moment refuting the 
learned doctors in the temple, at another mingling with and com- 
forting his fellow-creatures in wretchedness and rags. To him 
the petty distinctions of mankind were nought but mockery; alike 
to him was the pomp of earthly power, and the pride of penury; 
alike to him the rags of the beggar, and the crimson robes of roy- 
alty; alike to him the grandeur of wealth, the boast of birth, the 
mansion of the monarch, and the cottage of the plebeian; alike to 
him the humble and the haughty; alike to him the pompous and 
the poor. In the spirit of his divinity, he dashed the golden 
crown from ihe head of guilty greatness, bade tyrants tremble on 
their thrones, and drew from the solitude of poverty the apostles 
of his church and his gospel. He was no titled tyrant, or imagi- 
nary monarch, tricked out in gaudy magnificence, to dazzle and 
degrade a horde of slaves, pleased with the chains that rattled on 
the limbs of liberty. Far different was his glory and his grandeur! 
Upon his manly lips, hung the hallowed accents of religion and 
gospel law; his regal robes were innocence and peace; his wea- 
pon was his Word, and his throne and sceptre were the hearts and 
hopes of men. With the light of faith, he dissipated the illusive 
landscape of human error, and with the sword of truth, he hurled 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 185 

to the dust the splendid pantheon of Pagan idolatry. The dark- 
ness which surrounded their golden gods, and their ritual, was 
dissipated by the dawn of that day which shed brilliancy and 
beauty on the purity and practice of piety. In the urbanity of his 
benevolence, he led the van of victorious emancipation. He 
decked his brow with the garland of glory, with the wreath of 
religion, and filled his army with the soldiers of every sect and 
every clime. But he forged no fetters. He lit no fires for those 
who refused to bow to his decrees and obey his decalogue. Un- 
like the monarchs of the earth, he pleased not the eye of the 
world with the pomp of his power; and yet, at the magic of his 
word, the mighty waves of the ocean in its anger were stayed, 
and while it obeyed him, he walked upon its surface with a dignity 
that adorned him, and a faith that never failed. 

The hardened Judas, actuated by the gluttony of gold, be- 
trayed the Redeemer of mankind. How short was the transi- 
tion from the cradle to the cross ! Behold the insulted Saviour of 
the world rudely beaten, and basely scourged ! Behold him on 
the cross, gashed with gushing wounds, and suffering all the ago- 
nies of outraged humanity! With all the unbent and unbroken 
spirit of a God, now commending his soul to his Father, and now 
calling for mercy on those who were cruelly baptizing him in blood. 
He was indeed the great martyr of mankind, for the first drop of 
gore that gushed from his wounds, sealed that redemption which 
the prophets had foretold, and his death fulfilled. The mighty 
multitude grew giddy, while they gazed and glutted their senses 
on the suffering of an expiring Saviour. There were none but a 
few followers to vindicate his violated honor. Behold his blanched 
and bruised brow! Behold his sunken sockets, and visage pale! 
No vile passion is depicted there. Revenge sits not enthroned 
on the martyred brow it has butchered. Anger lights not the 
eye, nor curls the lip, which once beamed with moderation, and 
blessed with mercy and love. Oh no! the angel of dove-like peace 
sits there, the herald of the happiness he came to bestow on de- 
generate men. 

Ah see! he has bowed his head and died! With the word of 
life upon his lips, and the blessing of heaven in his heart, he has 
met death from the dart of the assassin, and perished to perpetuate 
the boon he bequeathed. The prophecies are fulfilled ; and man 
redeemed! In the moment he became a conqueror, he became 
a corpse. Thus to reclaim from sins, and soften the condition of 
man, the great Mediator departed from the world. No sooner 
24 



186 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

had the spirit of the glorious victim vanished, than the great tri- 
umph was announced. The sun blushed, and buried his face in 
the gloom of midnight, while the marble jaws of the tomb were 
rent asunder, and rolled forth the dead, who had slumbered for 
ages on the pillow of their repose, to walk the earth, startled from 
their deep damp vaults by the agonies of an expiring God. In 
that awful hour, the key of heaven's happy portal, and of hell's 
inexorable doors, was placed in the hand of man. In that awful 
hour, man became the arbiter of his choice, whether to be doomed 
to the dark dungeons of the lower world, or to rise to the sublime 
palaces and gardens of God ; whether to be entombed amid the 
burning wreck of human crime, or wander in the flowery fields 
and pleasant plains of Paradise. 

No garlands adorned his grave, and no tears, save those of wo- 
man, bedewed the place of his repose. His few followers alone 
wept over his death, and worshipped his divinity; they alone 
mourned over his wounds, and admired his wisdom. Jesus Christ 
was a martyr to the very immortality of man ; for his gospel, the 
glorious mantle of his memory, fell upon us all. Precious and 
imperishable was that legacy of love ! Treasured in the heart, it 
has become the brightest gem on the brows of beauty; at once 
the refuge of the wretched, the solace of society, the charm of 
solitude, and the amulet of age, of anguish, and despair. His 
very tomb became a temple, and his relics and resurrection con- 
founded skepticism, which, in vengeance, but in vain, attempted 
to rise upon his ruin, and make him the scourge and scorn of 
mankind. Even when enveloped in the gloomy garb of the grave, 
even when the doom of death had passed and the glorious Inter- 
cessor no longer blushed and bled for the sins of his enemies ; 
even when piety and affection, in the angel garb of woman, alone 
mused, and mourned at the door of the sacred sepulchre; even 
then his spirit triumphed in the doctrine which his death had 
achieved. Even then his gospel was destined to become the glory 
of the world, a solemn and sublime memento of his merits, and 
the glorious monument of his mercy, which neither Pagan super- 
stition could pollute, nor all the revolutions of time could blast 
nor obliterate. Inspired with the spirit of that wonderful being 
who sits enthroned in gold, and in whose sight "vast worlds hang 
trembling," the gospel became more imperishable than the pillars 
of the universe; and though all the rays of persecution have been 
concentrated upon it, in the language of a great classic, they 
served to illumine, but could not consume. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 187 

He left behind the light of his glorious intellect, to linger among 
men, at once the beacon, the beauty, and the blessing of this 
world ! His humility and mildness, his benevolence and love, 
must ever remain the blest memorial of his mission, and be handed 
to the latest posterity as perfect patterns, for he was without a 
model. The benefit conferred can never be abolished, for he 
crushed the very serpent that crawled over the cradle of Eden, and 
dashed from the hand of death, and the grasp of the grave, the 
very attributes of their victory and their vengeance. In his death, 
he redeemed the violated virtue of our first father, and palliated 
with his blood the impiety of Eve, when her soul was won to sin 
by the seductive blandishments of the serpent. The miseries they 
entailed upon mankind, were mitigated and immerged in the im- 
munities conferred by his martyrdom and the gospel he gave to 
the world. 

The very cities and empires which were the scenes of the pro- 
phecies, of his miracles and martyrdom, as though cursed by hea- 
ven, have crumbled to dust, and their ruins alone remain as me- 
mentos of their former magnificence. 

Where now is the glory of ancient Jerusalem, the princes of 
Palestine, decked with the gaudy grandeur of Solomon, and graced 
with her lofty temples, her towers, and her tombs ? 

Where now is the splendor of Babylon, adorned with her golden 
gates, her temple of Belus, and her hanging gardens and ever- 
lasting walls? Alas, they are in ruins, and their crumbling tem- 
ples and tombs alone remain, sad monuments, amid the waste of 
time, of their rise and ruin, of their degradation and decay. Their 
sumptuous halls, where eloquence, and mirth, and music once 
held the listening ears of the grand and the gay, have since be- 
come the lion's lair, or echoes the hooting of the dusky owl and 
the hiss of the solitary serpent. The land of the elect, the garden 
of God, has become the abode of the barbarian, the home of the 
Mahometan; and the very scenes which groaned and glittered 
beneath the palaces of Solomon, are now distinguished only by 
the tent of the humble Arab, or the gorgeous mosque of the Mos- 
lem. The laden camel now rests his limbs in the banquet hall of 
the ancient kings, and the toad spits its venom in the boudoirs of 
ancient beauty. Even the tombs of the mighty and magnificent, 
the tombs of Oriental genius have become the refuge of the Ara- 
bian robber, while the sepulchres of Israel's potentates are pro- 
faned by the nocturnal triumphs of a barbarian banditti. The very 



188 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

dust of their high priests and princes may have become the ce- 
ment of the sepulchre of Mahomet. Melancholy is the memory, 
and sad the renown of the once worshipped and wonderful Jeru- 
salem. The fame of the East and the favorite of heaven ! she 
bade fair to flourish through all time, like the pyramids of Egypt, 
and to wither but with the world. The traveller now treads upon 
her mouldering walls, and the ruins of her once majestic temples, 
to muse for a moment on the mutability of human glory, and to 
sigh over the miseries of ungrateful man. 

And where too is the glory of Athens, the seat of science and 
the home of song? The illuminator of nations, the haunt of So- 
crates, Plato and Zeno, and the very cradle of liberty, learning 
and law? Like Greece, she has become the grave of her own 
glory, her light only serving to distinguish the circle of darkness 
which surrounds her — magnificent in her ruin, and melancholy in 
her magnificence. The lamp of her ancient learning has gone out 
in the midnight of ages, and her Acropolis has crumbled at the 
touch of the irresistible tooth of time. The fame of her philoso- 
phy alone survives her fallen grandeur; the pages of history alone 
preserve the relics of her renown. 

When Paul preached in her pulpit, and Plato plead his philoso- 
phy in her porch, Athens was the wonder and admiration of the 
world. 

Imperial Rome, whose pampered soldiery offered insolence and 
injury to an insulted Saviour, lies in ruins, a mighty marble wreck, 
the sceptre of her ancient splendor, and the mere apparition of 
her ancient renown. Rome, within whose walls millions once 
congregated; Rome, the conqueror of Carthage, and the world, 
has become the lap of ruin, like her ancient catacombs, still white 
with the mangled remains of the martyred Christians. Her mil- 
lions have gone down to the dust; her glory slumbers beneath her 
crumbling columns, and her time-worn walls; her arts lie dormant 
in the lap of Gothic darkness, and her science reposes in the un- 
numbered volumes of the Vatican. Rome is no longer the city of 
the Caesars. Such has been the fate of all those countries which 
were the scenes of the Saviour's sorrows and sufferings. A thou- 
sand thrones have vanished; a thousand cities have become silent; 
empires have passed away on the ocean of oblivion, and even na- 
tions have been annihilated amid the wrecks and rubbish of time's 
revolutions. The Jews are a splendid example. Born in the lap of 
luxury and bred amid all that was grand and glorious, the peculiar 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 189 

favorites of heaven, they dreamed not of their degradation, and 
reckless of their ruin, seemed to dare that arm 

"Which heaved the heavens, the ocean, and the land." 

The Jewish empire and people vi^ere once mighty. What are they 
now? The sun of their glory which arose in lustre was doomed 
to go down in oblivion. They have been scattered over the earth, 
while their identity has been preserved as a mark, and a remem- 
brance of their turpitude and treachery. The cup of heaven's 
kindness dashed from their lips, and pining under the doom of 
prophecy, they have become the proverb and the prey of all na- 
tions. Looking forward for that Saviour who has already suffered 
for the sins of mankind, and neglecting the mercy which he has 
already meted out, they wander in the dark for the rays of that 
light which has already illuminated the world. Yet, notwithstand- 
ing the benefits conferred by the gospel, there are those in the 
present day who would hurl from the hand of age, the only cup 
of his comfort, and snatch from the lip of sorrow the balm of its 
consolation. There are skeptical scoffers who would drag from 
the beggar his only boon on earth, who would extinguish the very 
day-star whose beams light error and ignorance to the path which 
leads to glory and to God. Merciful God! there are those who 
would see the venerated temple of Christianity tumble to the earth, 
and triumph over the downfall of the most beautiful and benefi- 
cent doctrine in the world. Yes, there are those that would mock 
at the bleeding shade of the resuscitated Saviour, and laugh to 
scorn the blessings conferred by his doctrine and his death. Infi- 
delity strikes at the very divinity of Christ. 

The introduction of Christianity has conferred benefits on soci- 
ety, which were unknown in the days of Pagan doctrines and 
darkness. Abolish it, and what is the consequence? Let us ex- 
amine the pages of history! let us turn to France, the land of 
fashion, for a picture so touching, and so terrible a catastrophe. 
Aye, let us turn to France, the very home of philosophy and fame; 
the very land of social virtues, of elegance and grace, and we shall 
see her scaffolds streaming with the blood which skepticism de- 
manded for the allar of her hellish adoration. We shall there see 
her Sabbath abolished; her cities sacked, her sons groaning in 
dungeons beneath an intolerable tyranny, her priests turned out 
to pine in penury, and her princes and her potentates sacrificed 



190 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

on the pyre lit from the fires of hell. Poverty became the pander 
of licentious power, and virtue became the victim, and beauty the 
oblation on the accursed altar of promiscuous prostitution. No 
charm was spared, no virtue was secure. The attractions of 
beauty, the pride of birth, the pomp of wealth, and the glory of 
talents, served only as incentives to persecution and plunder. 
The infidel demon, Robespierre, was in league with death, and 
the gore that gushed from a hundred hearts of the bravest and the 
best, was but a moiety of that terrible torrent which swept away 
the religion and liberties of France, and which dyed their brow 
red with the avenging wrath of God. The convulsive heavings of 
the French volcano, lit all Europe with its lurid flame, and the 
terrors it excited, subsided only with the death of the master de- 
mon. Look at the last moments of those miserable men who 
plunged all France in grief, made blood their oblation at their al- 
tar of liberty, and plundered the expiring heart of its very hopes 
of heaven. Too cowardly, when condemned to strike the dagger 
home to their own hearts, they were meanly dragged to the same 
block which their tyranny had made to run red with the blood of 
so many. 

Trembling at the terrors which surrounded them, and deafened 
by the rejoicing plaudits of the multitude, they perished, and found 
a grave unregretted, though not forgotten. 

Thus died the ruffian Robespierre, covered with the curses of a 
thousand mourning mothers. Thus fell one of the most terrific 
tyrants that ever prostituted power or disgraced the glory of a 
nation. He died not like a Christian, but like a demon. The 
principles he had perpetuated perished with him, and if these 
were the trophies of the tenets of Rousseau, well might Napoleon 
exclaim, while contemplating his tomb, that it had been better for 
France had he never lived. Beneath the skeptical philosophy 
Rousseau originated, France withered; and under such a system of 
ujiiversal vice, the world would become a waste and man a mur- 
derer. Sweep Christianity from our hearths, and our hearts, from 
our churches and homes, banish the Bible from the pulpit, the 
closet, and parlor, and give skepticism the sceptre of the same 
power she possessed in France, and the world would become a 
mighty Colosseum of carnage, and the hands of a hundred Robes- 
pierres would reek with the unmeasured gore of millions. 

Let us then cling to Christianity as the last plank of ship- 
wrecked humanity, and the only anchor of our hope, and our 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 191 

happiness! Let that brilliant luminary which went down in 
blood on Calvary, be the morning star of our merits and our 
memory; being assured, that it will light us to the pleasant paths 
of peace in this world, and beyond the dark defiles of death and 
the grave. 



e iinfant laninut 



Methinks I stand within the manger now, 
Gazing upon the infant God, who lies 
Smiling, upon the holy Mother's breast. 
Upon his face the hght of love beams forth. 
And in his eye sweet mercy sits enthroned. 
While on his lofty brow the stamp of heaven 
Proclaims him more than mortal — now methinks 
I hear the shouting shepherds cry aloud — 
Glad tidings, from a hundred hills, and peace 
To all the fallen world, for, lo! a child. 
The great Redeemer of mankind, is born ! 
Oh! glorious hour, when e'en the greedy grave 
Gave up its victory, and in man's heart 
Death's dark winged angel left his sting no more! 
Oh! glorious hour, when his Almighty hand 
Hung the bright rainbow of redemption round 
A dying and degraded world, and bade 
The gentle mandate of sweet mercy cha«e 
Away the midnight mists of sin and shame! 
Then man was truly made immortal — then 
The golden gates of heaven, wide open thrown, 
Welcomed him home to happiness ; and then 
The happy angels, in the halls of heaven. 
Awoke, upon their harps of gold, the song 
Of gladness and of glory to the Lamb, 
Who came to die that wretched man might hve. 



€\xist m Calljarg. 



" 'J'here stands the messenger of truth : there stands 
The legate of the skies ! — His theme divine, 
His office sacred, his credentials clear. 
By him the violated law speaks out 
Its thunders ; and by him in strains as sweet 
As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace. 
He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak, 
Reclaims the wand'rer, binds the broken heart." — Cowpek. 

AM invited to record my opinion of the most 
[illustrious and glorious character, that ever con- 
descended to tread the earth — of the most bril- 
liant and beautiful doctrine that ever illuminated 
|the mind of man. I am solicited to draw the 
'picture of a scene which millions of mankind 
have contemplated with feelings the most tender 
and terrific — a scene that the eternal founder of 
the universe could not view unmoved — a scene 
of all others the most touching and irresistibly 
sublime. That character, so noble, so magnifi- 
cent and divine, is no other than the all-glorious 
and sacred Saviour of the world — that doctrine 
no less than the luminous and everlasting oracle 
of his lips — that scene, so touching, so tremen- 
dous and terrific, and which none may rival but 
the final dissolution of nature, is no other and no less than the 
crucifixion of a God, for the redemption of the insignificant, 
though immortal creature, man. 

I feel the grandeur of my subject; a theme of all others the 
most sublime, the most sympathetic and susceptible of melting 
the heart of man. In contemplating so magnificent a character, 
I am at a loss for language sufficiently elevated to do justice to 
his immortal fame; even the pen with which I write, plucked from 
the wing of the heaven-soaring eagle, is inadequate to the task of 
portraying the attributes of the Saviour of mankind. The melting 




WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 193 

story of our Saviour's sufferings, of our Redeemer's wrongs in the 
prelude, and consummation on Calvary, what human fancy may 
delineate, what human language describe! The brilliant history 
of that unrivalled character, exhibits the deepest traits of human 
nature that are recorded on the pages of fame, or enrolled in the 
archives of ages. Whether we behold him in the temple or tri- 
bunal, in solitude or society, in pleasure or in pain, he is the same 
grand and glorious character, the same benevolent and blessed 
being. He was emphatically the child of humility. Born in a 
manger, cradled in obscurity, and bred to human industry, he was 
an example, a striking model of retiring modesty. We survey 
him scorned, scourged and trampled upon, without complaining, 
and almost without reproof, meek as the lamb beneath the knife 
of the butcher. And yet he was a God, the King of kings, whose 
power was omnipotent, and whose knowledge was unbounded ; 
who could have shaken the throne and darkened the destiny of 
even the tyrant that condemned him. Would that I could inherit, 
at this moment, the electric eloquence of a Chrysostom, the un- 
rivalled pencil of a West or a Leonardo de Vinci, that I might do 
justice to the glorious doctrine and picture of human redemption/ 
Neither the Talmud nor the Koran, nor any other doctrine ever 
promulgated by the mouth of man, is so replete in mildness and 
mercy, so full of grandeur and glory, of sublimity and song, as 
that which our Lord and Saviour gave to a dying world. The 
saint and the savage, the philosopher and the fool, alike have felt 
its influence and testified to the superb sentiments and living lan- 
guage which it contains. Its influence, what telescopic eye can 
foresee, what human intelligence recapitulate. From that great 
and gloomy, though glorious era, when the Saviour came to re- 
deem a fallen world, it has swayed the minds of men, and its in- 
fluence will continue over millions of men unborn. The cold and 
treacherous assassin, as he stole at midnight to the couch of sleep- 
ing innocence, has felt its power when the undipped dagger fell 
from his conscience-stricken hand ; and the savage tomahawk has 
found a grave, by the secret and mysterious influence of its god- 
like power. It hath bidden the stream of charity to flow from the 
closed and withered heart of avarice, and it hath released the grip 
of oppression from the pale and piteous form of penury. Yea, it 
hath even softened the adamantine heart of the tyrant, and severed 
the chains which rattled on the arms of the guiltless sons of Afri- 
ca. The pale and pensive suicide hath called upon it for aid, ere 
he lifted the weapon to the tottering throne of reason, nor did he 
25 



194 ■WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

call in vain; beneath the influence of its present balm and pro- 
mised bliss, the troubled sea of passion subsided, and the wrecks 
of disappointed hopes broke with the next wave, upon the shore of 
oblivion. Who hath not seen the condemned, the outcast of the 
earth, whose hands were still reeking with the gore of his fellow- 
man, chained in the deep dark dungeon? And who hath not 
seen that dungeon become the happiest home that had ever held 
that wretch, by the influence of the Gospel, making his heart a 
heaven, and casting a sunshine even on the dreadful hour of dis- 
solution. Who then but a demon would sigh to see so glorious a 
gift cut off' from the reach of man? Lives there a wretch who 
would wish to see the splendid sun of redemption go down forever 
in the eternal night of infidelity? Ay, what man, even a friend to 
society, would smile to see the flimsy and fanciful philosophy of 
infidelity, triumph over the ruins of the superb system of Christi- 
anity? Until something more sublime, something more consoling 
and conciliatory, can be substituted in the place of the annihilat- 
ing philosophy of infidelity, let the ancient and venerable temple 
of Christianity still tower over the fallen pyramids of Pagan super- 
stition, the safeguard of morals, and the harbinger of hope and 
happiness hereafter. I would rather bow at the humble altar of 
the Christian, than be the priest of the rites and ceremonies of the 
Delphic Oracle — I would rather trust to the merciful promises of 
the Gospel, than be versed in all the splendid and specious phi- 
losophy of the French Illuminati: — I would rather wear the crown 
of the humblest of the martyrs, than that of the proudest poten- 
tate of the earth. Where was the brilliant and fine-spun philoso- 
phy of Voltaire, at the fearful moment of dissolution? Where 
were the splendid and sophistical reasonings of Mirabeau, Mau- 
pertuis and D'Alembert, when the last trump sounded in their 
dying ears? Gone, like the airy fabric of a noon-day dream. As 
well might such systems be compared to Christianity, as the me- 
teor of the night to the brilliant and beautiful luminary of day. 
Other characters have arisen, flourished and fallen — other con- 
/ querors have shaken the world with the tumult of their triumphs, 
and dazzled the imaginations of men with the brilliancy of their 
achievements, and the rapidity of their career — other patriots have 
severed the chains and dispelled the Gothic darkness of slavery, 
entered the temple of fame and recorded the freedom of a nation; 
but none may compare with the rising of that illustrious luminary, 
for he not only shed a light upon succeeding ages — he not only 
conquered the hearts and fallen hopes of man — he not only car- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 195 

ried captive the king of terrors and the sins of the world, but he 
triumphed over the tomb, and achieved a revolution in the very 
nature and nothingness, in the very destiny and dignity of man. 
The splendor of his victories cast a shade upon the exploits of a 
Scipio and Cfesar, for without a sword he revolutionized the world, 
and beheld the nations kneeling before him — the thunders of Sinai 
surpassed the eloquence of a Cicero in its grandeur and power, 
for it was more irresistible than the clash of arms and the tumult 
of battle, and the manner of his warfare reversed the order of 
revolution, givino^ new life to the combatants. And by what means 
did he achiev'd'^^^brilliant and beneficial ». revolution? Go muse 
amid the melancholy and mouldering wrecks of Jerusalem, and 
ask the genius of those solitudes! Go and ascend the summit of 
the far-famed Calvary — go to the sepulchre of the Saviour, to the 
tomb of the triumphant Redeemer, and to the garden where his 
disciples slept under the influence of grief, and methinks an aspi- 
ration from those scenes will recite the story of his sufferings and 
sorrows, the history of the redemption of man I 

Let us turn for a moment and survey that scene which eventu- 
ated in the emancipation of a world. Let us contemplate that 
character of all others the most illustrious and divine. We behold 
the man! To appearance but a man, yet, in fact, endowed with 
all the attributes of a God. The prophetic tongues of men long 
mouldered into dust, have foretold his dawning and his doom, and 
his own intuitive knowledge; his own prophetic soul, is looking 
forward to that hour which must bring the consummation of that 
grand catastrophe, which was destined to rescue millions from 
misery. But he shrunk not from the sacrifice which was neces- 
sary to the consummation. The agonies of the cross could not 
alarm him, neither had the tomb any terror for him, for he was 
confident of the triumph, and that he could descend, without fear, 
to that gloomy repository, which covers alike all human hopes and 
all human anticipations. /No human animosity or resentment 
dwelt in his heavenly heart; for, with kindness and consideration, 
he designated the man who should betray him. Firmness and 
dignity were characteristic of him, who was not ignorant that the 
most cruel and ignominious of all deaths awaited him. Behold 
him bound and dragged before the high priest. I adjure thee, 
says Caiaphas, in the name of the living God, to tell me whether 
thou art the Christ or not? If I tell thee, returned the Saviour, 
thou wilt not believe me, but nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter 
you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the power 



196 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven. The priest hearing 
his words, that he was the Son of God, cried out — he hath blas- 
phemed, and is worthy of death. Ah! see how meekly he bears 
the indignities heaped upon him. How melts the heart at the re- 
collection, that he who was at that moment preparing to redeem 
poor fallen man by the sacrifice of his own sublime life, was also 
suffering the scorns, the taunts and buffetings, of those same crea- 
tures, for whom his blood was to be shed. The fall of Peter at 
that period, was a conspicuous example of the weakness of human 
nature, and the strength of human resolution, for he no sooner 
became conscious of his fall, than he attempted to rise by repent- 
ance. "I hear not the voice of St. Peter, lamenting his fall," says 
St. Ambrose, "but I see his tears." Blessed tears, that can cor- 
rect the heart, j 

Let us survey the Sagjour before Pilate, whom the crowd is call- 
ving upon the judge to condemn. Let his blood fall upon us and 
our children, cried the Jews; and never was an imprecation more 
faithfully fulfilled, more avengingly executed. Pilate, borne down 
by the torrent of his passions, stopped not to listen to the dictates 
of duty, the pleadings of pity, or the cries of injured innocence. 
Here is one of those strong and touching traits of human nature. 
Though his heart inclined to pity the distressed, and succor the 
innocent, yet the tumult of contending passions, the love of 
wealth, of grandeur and power, the fear of immolating popularity 
on the altar of humanity, and the dread of the resentment of the 
mighty Caesar, the autocrat of the earth, opposed the piteous dic- 
tates of his heart, and resisted the philosophy of pity. 

In mournful silence let us follow the condemned Saviour to the 
summit of Calvary, and witness that spectacle, which struck terror 
to the spectators, and melted even the heart of adamant. Me- 
thinks I see him with his crown of thorns, and bending beneath 
the weight of his cross. The prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, for 
he is ranked with sinners. Methinks I see him nailed to the 
cross. It was the sixth hour of the day, and what a dreadful hour. 
We are informed, by the incontestible evidence of sacred writ, 
that a mournful darkness overspread the face of heaven, and 
shrouded the earth as in mourning. There hung, at that tremen- 
dous hour, the adorable mediator between God and man, a spec- 
tacle for men and angels; an example of undying love and mercy. 
There he hung bleeding, and in agony, and though his sufferings 
were insulted, he sought no revenge, for his thoughts were the 
thoughts of peace. Father forgive them, for they know not what 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 197 

they do. How tender, how touching were his words; covered 
with wounds, he was emphatically that man of sorrows and pains 
that Isaiah had described. Knowing that all things which had 
been foretold were fulfilled; that all things were accomplished, 
and that the grand consummation was at hand, he said, I thirst, 
and having drank the vinegar, he said, '^It is consummated.^^ Three 
hours had this glorious though ghastly spectacle continued, and 
every thing which the prophets had said of the Saviour and his 
sufferings, being accomplished, nothing remained but to pay the 
last tribute for the redemption of the world. What an hour was 
that of sublimity and sorrow — what a moment of terror and tri- 
umph! That grand type of the Saviour, the glorious sun in the 
heavens, was eclipsed, as though unwilling to illuminate the earth 
when the greater light of the world was darkening in death. An 
universal gloom, as of midnight or the grave, covered the earth 
until the ninth hour. The globe shook as with an earthquake, the 
eternal rocks cracked and split asunder, and the marble jaws of 
the grave opened and gave up its gloomy dead. Methinks I see 
the terrific scene and hear the exclamations of the multitude, as 
they gaze, with ghastly countenance, upon the veil of the temple 
rent in twain. Jesus Christ, at that moment of agony, cried with 
a loud voice. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Spent 
with suffering, he bowed his head and died. What a glorious yet 
gloomy moment was that! The world was redeemed; the accu- 
mulated sins of man, which had been darkening his destiny from 
the Eden era to the Christian, were now washed away by the 
blood of him, of whom an elegant writer observes, that with the 
very spear which they crucified him, he crucified the world. The 
very implements of their vengeance became the trophies of his 
victory. At that moment the sting of death was obliterated, and 
the triumph taken from the grave. At that moment the idol tum- 
bled from the Pagan temple, and the genius of its superstitions 
vanished for ever. The tongues of the heathen oracles, which for 
ages had held dominion over the intellect of man, became silent, 
and their inspiration was eclipsed in the glory of the Gospel of 
God. While the last words yet quivered upon the lips of the 
dying Saviour, the mighty revolution was achieved, the law be- 
came void ; the mysteries and mandates of Moses passed away, 
and the new dispensation commenced. That dispensation, that 
Gospel, was not for the few, but the many, not for the virtuous 
alone, but the vicious. The miser bowing before his golden god, 
the monarch seated in grandeur on his glittering throne, and the 



198 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

beggar bending beneath his woes, are alike the subjects of its 
denunciations, alike the objects of its offered mercy. 

How great is our necessity to seize with avidity the benefits 
which have resulted from this grand catastrophe and glorious con- 
summation. We are told by that same illustrious character, whom 
we have contemplated, that the hour is approaching with incredi- 
ble velocity, when not only we ourselves shall cease to exist, but 
even the splendid fabric of the universe shall pass away. We 
have his own word, that he will be present at the august and ter- 
rific scene. That he will come in his chariot of fire on the clouds, 
and sit as a spectator of the grand fabric in flames. If that uni- 
versal alarm were to break forth at this moment in the heavens, 
what a consternation and confusion would it not produce in the 
concerns and pursuits of miserly man! In the resurrection of the 
Saviour we see a type of that terrific consummation, when every 
grave shall give up its dead, the sea roll forth its millions, and the 
tombs of Oriental genius, and the sepulchres of ancient saints and 
sages, priests and prophets, teem with life. What a sublime as- 
semblage! What a magnificent multitude! It is impossible for 
the finite imagination of man to conceive the sublimity of that 
scene, which Christ has declared shall be exhibited to the assem- 
bled millions of mankind. The idea of a single planet wrapt in 
flames, is too grand to be admitted into the mind ; but to behold 
the millions of those vast globes, which make up the universe, on 
fire; to behold them released from the restraints of attraction and 
gravity, and rushing by each other like mighty comets, and burst- 
ing with the explosion of their materials, is a picture too great for 
the mind of man to conceive, or conceiving, to describe. 
/ Let it be sufficient for us to know, that the Gospel has come 
down to us with glad tidings, and that he who rests upon that 
rock, need neither fear to look forward to the dissolution of na- 
ture, nor the wreck and ruin of the universe. That he who builds 
upon that rock, need neither fear the gloom of the grave, nor the 
last loud blast which shall announce the cessation of the revolu- 
tion of time. That doctrine upon which we rest our hopes, is 
destined to be more lasting than the proud pyramids of Egypt — it 
has already resisted the test and tooth of time, and stood unhurt, 
amid the whirlwinds of passion. While the empires of the earth 
have passed away, and the thrones of despots have crumbled into 
dust, the temple of Christianity has still stood unhurt by the war 
of Pagan superstition, or the incendiary of modern infidelity. 
Even if it had no relation to futurity, and only exerted its influ- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 199 

ence in the correction of society, it were a blessing not to be ex- 
changed for heartless infidelities; it were a blessing the greatest 
and most glorious ever given to man. That it is founded in truth, 
needs no other proof than the destiny and present dilapidated 
state of the Jews. The heart of sensibility bleeds for their fate ; 
but it is the eternal fiat of heaven. That unhappy race is now 
scattered over the earth; a mark is set upon them; they have be- 
come a by-word, and they are the suspected of all men. But they 
are not forgotten, they are still full of hope and faith, that the 
Messiah will yet make his appearance, and replace them again in 
the land of beautiful Palestine — that he will yet come in majesty 
and mercy to redeem the fallen favorites of heaven, and to build 
up the broken-hearted children of Israel,,^ 

How astonishing, how startling is the fact, that Christianity 
should have been opposed, at the very dawn, when every circum- 
stance was fresh in the mind, and by men who had witnessed the 
very spectacle of an expiring God ? "Socrates died like a philos- 
opher," says Rousseau, "but Jesus Christ like a God." Alas! the 
catacombs of ruined Rome, still exhibit the relics of the illustrious 
martyrs, who expired under the most excruciating torments, or 
lingered out a miserable existence, in the dungeons of supersti- 
tious tyranny. Methinks the agonizing groans of the persecuted 
Christians, still echo along the mouldering walls of the Colisseum, 
where the unfeeling multitude looked unmoved upon the mangled 
martyr beneath the tooth of the tiger, and the gore as it gushed 
from the heart of the dying gladiator. There thousands of the 
primitive Christians expired, sad spectacles of amusement for their 
Pagan persecutors. But a subject so sublime, a doctrine so divine, 
could not be obliterated by the paltry attempts of tyrants, and it 
has descended the tide of time, to us, the same brilliant and im- 
perishable gift, as when promulgated to the world. The millions 
of men who will come after us, will see the same beauty and be- 
atitude in its promises; the same grandeur and glory in its doc- 
trine. No second Judas can arise to betray it, though thousands 
have attempted it; no second traitor can triumph over the down- 
fall of his doctrine. It is fixed on the rock of ages. 
X But to conclude my lofty theme. Every prophecy in the Gos- 
r pel of our God, is fulfilling with astonishing rapidity and precision 
— the gift of glad tidings has gone forth to the very depths of our 
wilderness, and the savage sons of the forest, as the consequences, 
have forgotten their ferocious pursuits, and are seen bowing the 
knee to God, and no longer paying adoration to the setting sun. 



200 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

The Gospel has gone forth to the Arab and the Hindoo, and wo- 
man is gradually emerging from the long night of her slavery, to 
fill the station to which she is entitled. The very destiny of that 
heathen inheritance has undergone a change, for the hunter is 
seen cultivating the land, and the war-chief making laws to govern 
his civilized posterity. Truly has the desert blossomed like the 
rose. No longer does the benighted mind of the Indian pay his 
devotions to the genius of clouds, or look for the coming of the 
Great Spirit in the storm of night; but he sees an evidence of the 
living God in all his works, in every leaf and every grain that veg- 
etates on the earth. Such were the effects intended to be pro- 
duced by that great consummation on Calvary. In every lane of 
life, and in every avocation of our concerns, may we not forget, 
that for us this grand sacrifice was made, and that the Saviour 
rendered up his own life, that we might live forever. 

"This truth how certain, when this life is o'er 
Man dies to live, and lives to die no more." 



Kms. 



I SAW a ship, in beauty to the breeze, 

Bend her white sails upon the dark blue seas; 

Swift o'er the billows, on the wings of wind, 

She disappeared, nor left a track behind; 

At morn I saw her, but at set of sun. 

Gone was that ship, her trackless race was run: 

And thus it is with man, his soul sublime, 

In life's gay morn, upon the tide of time, 

Moves on in grandeur; but when night comes on, 

He, on eternity's dark sea, is gone; 

He disappears, nor do life's billows bear 

One trace, 'tis as he never had been there. 



THE BROKEN HEART, 

O R 



Full many a heart, to virtue truly wed, 

By evil tongues, hath broken and hath bled; 

Full many a lovely girl, to grace allied, 

By slander's dart, hath dwindled, droop'd and died; 

But she has triumph'd with her latest breath. 

O'er evil tongues, o'er slander, and o'er death. 

HE incidents comprised in he foHowing touch- 
ing story, I obtained from a very respectable 
lady, during a recent visit, with some friends, 
to West Chester. The reader, while dropping 
a tear over the melancholy fate of the fair, the 
beautiful, the virtuous and accomplished Mary, 
(I always loved that gentle name,) may be assured 
that every line of this history of her short and 
sad life, is true; the name only is fictitious. The 
lady who related it to me, could not refrain from 
weeping, while dwelling with emphasis on some 
of the scenes in the life of this lovely and inno- 
cent victim of persecution ; and when she de- 
picted the hours of anguish endured, and the 
death-bed scene of the heart-broken one, my 
own bosom swelled with emotion, and my eyes 
filled with tears. The heart, if there be any, that can hear or read 
without emotion, the story of this beautiful and blighted young 
lady, is less sensitive than my own. 

Mary Mandeville was the daughter of poor but respectable pa- 
rents, and as there were other children besides herself, she sought 
every opportunity to obtain an education, by which she might be 
enabled to support herself genteelly. This she accomplished, and 
soon obtained a situation in a store, for which she was found qua- 
26 




202 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

lifted in an eminent degree, not only by her education, but by her 
pleasing and persuasive manners, and by her industry and attention 
to business. 

I have said that Mary was beautiful; and I state it not only on 
the authority of a lady, but on that of several gentlemen who knew 
her, and admired her for her mental as well as her personal 
beauty. Amiable, affectionate, modest and unassuming, she could 
not but be beloved by all who could appreciate her worth. Her 
mind she had cultivated with great assiduity ; so passionately fond of 
literature, particularly poetry, was she, that her leisure hours were 
almost exclusively devoted to gathering garlands from the Muses. 
This fact will at once account for her exquisite sensibility and fine 
feeling, for the very fondness for poetry is an evidence of the pos- 
session of taste, of refined sentiment, and the highest and holiest 
feelings of the heart. Show me a person who evinces a repug- 
nance to the charms of the Muses, and I will show you one who 
is deficient in taste, in refined feelings, and exalted sentiment. 
Many a time, after the duties of the day were done, did Mary 
Mandeville sit poring over some sweet poem or tale of romance, 
till the clock struck twelve, and the midnight lamp began to wane; 
little dreaming that her own future history would be as romantic 
a story of suffering and sorrow, as the one over which she then 
shed her tears of sympathy. 

Mary Mandeville possessed a heart that was alive to the tender- 
est feeling, and this, conjoined with her intelligent mind, bewitch- 
ing manners, and winning ways, made her a universal favorite. 
Her society was courted, both by the graceful and the gifted, and 
she found a ready passport to the most refined circles in her native 
town. Mary was constituted by nature, to be happy, and she was 
happy, up to the hour when slander fixed its envenomed fang in 
her innocent heart. A smile, when she met her friends, was ever 
playing over her blooming ©heeks, like sunlight upon roses, and 
her merry voice of song melted on the enamored ear, like the 
melody of some shepherd's lute, when it dies away in lingering 
echoes over the bosom of a lucid lake. 

Though Mary had sprung from humble life, she could not be 
otherwise than conscious of her worth; for she had ample evi- 
dences of it around her, in the homage that was paid to her mental 
as well as her personal beauty by the gayest, wealthiest and most 
gifted young gentlemen ; in the admiration that was awarded to 
her modest and accomplished manners, and in the eagerness with 
which her society was courted. She could not do otherwise than 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 203 

feel that nature had been lavish of her gifts to her, and that in 
point of mind and manners, as well as in moral worth, she was 
superior to the great mass of womankind; but let it not be sup- 
posed that she was haughty, or played the foolish airs of the 
coquette. Far from it. Sincerity marked her every word and 
action; she was affable, polite to all, and deeply affectionate to 
those who shared her friendship. Cheerful, lively, and with a heart 
ever attuned to joy, she had never yet learned to shed the tear of 
sorrow. Admired and beloved for her artlessness and innocence, 
life, to her, was a scene of sunshine and flowers, never yet dark- 
ened by a single cloud. 

Such was the happy Mary Mandeville, during the greater part 
of the time that she was performing the duties of a clerk, in the 
store of Mr. Whitefield. The proudest young gentlemen of the 
borough were not too proud to bow before her beauty, and it was 
her intelligence, her excellence of moral character, and amiable 
disposition, that prompted Mr. Whitefield to give her a situation 
in his store. Mr. Whitefield was a gentleman of high respecta- 
bility, who possessed a soul of honor, and a heart alive to every 
generous feeling. He saw in Mary many estimable qualities, 
worthy of his admiration, (not that of love, for he had long been a 
married man,) and he thought he was only doing justice to a de- 
serving young lady, in giving her a situation in his employment, by 
which she could support herself genteelly. He was happy, in thus 
doing his duty towards a poor girl who had no one to befriend her 
pecuniarily ; and Mary was happy, too, in being able, through the 
kindness of her benefactor, to relieve her family of the burthen of 
her support. She felt a deep sense of the obligation she was 
under to Mr. Whitefield, and her gratitude knew no bounds. He 
was a generous and liberal man, and so much did her amiability 
and thankfulness win upon his esteem, that he felt for her all the 
regard that he would have felt for a sister, and, in the name of a 
sister, he made her many presents, in consideration of her atten- 
tion to business, and her constant, assiduous efforts to further his 
interest. She was faithful and industrious in his service, and he 
considered what he gave her but the meet reward of her worth. 
But, alas! these rewards of her merit were to be made, by evil 
tongues, in future, the means of her ruin ; these very tokens of 
her worth, were to become daggers in her despair. 

Among the many admirers, who bowed down before her beauty, 
there was one for whom she retained a deep and lasting re- 
gard. It was not the passion of a moment. Whilst engaged in 



204 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

the Store of Mr. Whitefield, there were many young men, some 
of them of the haut ton and beau monde, who paid attention to 
her; but, among them all, she felt a predilection for Henry Bran- 
don, a young man of respectability, and good moral character. 
Indeed, Mr. Whitefield, who considered himself the guardian of 
Mary, would not permit her, unadvised, to receive attention from 
any other than an upright young man, whom he considered worthy 
to be the husband of the virtuous, intelligent, and lovely Mary. 
So particular was he in guarding her from being intruded upon 
by the unworthy, that he never suffered her to go home, late at night, 
unattended. Mary felt that he was her guardian, and she was 
grateful for his kindness in shielding her from harm, and for re- 
vealing to her the characters of those who were attracted by her 
superior charms. Often when speaking of the intelligence, beauty, 
virtue and amiable disposition of Mary, has Mr. Whitefield been 
heard, with enthusiasm, to exclaim, "Blest, thrice blest, will the 
young man be, who wooes and wins that sweet girl to be his 
wife; and woe, eternal woe, be to him, who would be so mean, 
so base, so demon-like, as to win her, to betray her confiding 
heart." 

So much did he feel like a brother; so much did he become 
interested in her welfare; that he declared vengeance to him who 
should ever harm a hair of her head. Who, indeed, would not 
have taken a deep interest in so beautiful, so gentle, so amiable, 
so affectionate, and, withal, so grateful a creature as Mary Mande- 
ville? So innocent, so harmless, so affectionate, was she; so 
much, and so sincerely did she love the whole human race, that 
she could not have been induced to believe that there was a single 
being on the earth who would be so cruel as to injure her. So 
fine were her feelings, and so tender was her heart, that she could 
not read a pathetic tale of fiction without shedding tears of sym- 
pathy for the sorrows described in it. 

Mary acquired, while in the store, so nice a judgment of the 
quality of goods, that, at her request, Mr. Whitefield took her with 
him to Philadelphia, to assist in selecting such articles as he wanted 
for his sales. Wherever she went, she elicited the same admira- 
tion, respect, and regard for her intelligent conversation, and 
amiable manners, to say nothing of her personal beauty, as she 
did at home, for her charms were calculated to win friends and 
golden opinions in any circle of society. 

In company with Henry, she spent many hours in reading 
elegant authors, and conversing on their respective merits. The 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 205 

hours flew by on golden wings, when thus engaged; and the little 
god of" love was busy in fixing his arrows in both their hearts. 
Evening after evening did Henry repair to the happy home of 
Mary, and more and more rapidly did the hours seem to fly away; 
for the oftener he saw her, the more he loved her. One evening, 
after the books had been laid aside, he took her small white hand 
in his, and said — 

" Mary, there is something I wish, and yet fear to say to you." 

Mary's gaiety and liveliness immediately forsook her, for she 
saw an expression of anxiety in the eye of Henry. 

" Why should you fear," said she, " to say any thing that is civil 
to me, Henry? I hope you are not afraid of me." 

"No, dearest Mary, I am not afraid of you; but I am afraid of 
offending you by what I have to say. Will you promise me not 
to be off'ended?" 

A slight blush suff"used the cheek of the fair girl, as she threw 
back her lovely locks, and replied, " Henry, I have long known 
you, and I know that you would not say any thing offensive to 
a lady; and I can, therefore, on the faith of that, say that I will 
not be offended." 

"Then, Mary, I love you," said Henry, embarrassed. 

"Indeed! and is that all, Henry ? Why there is nothing crimi- 
nal in loving any one — why should you fear to avow a thing so 
natural and common?" interrogated Mary, with a smile, as her face 
colored. 

" But ah! dearest Mary, do you love me? That is what I feared 
to ask; for of all things on this side of the grave, there is nothing 
so severe, as 

'To love, and find no fond return.'" 

"True Henry," returned the gentle Mary, as she bent on him a 
pair of the most bewitching eyes in the world, and again blushed. 
" It must be severe to the heart of sensibility to 

'Love and be not loved again.'" 

" But that is not answering the question," said Henry, in a 
melancholy tone, and with a deep sigh, as he cast his eyes on the 
floor. 

"Well, then, Henry, to be candid with you, I have long held 
you in high respect, and now feel a deep interest in your welfare. 
Indeed I can never do less; for Mr. Whitefield, whom I look upon 



206 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

as my disinterested friend and guardian, has spoken of you in the 
highest terms." 

"Nay, nay, now, dearest Mary, speak to the point; I cannot 
be satisfied with that, which you would express for any friend. 
Speak to the point — do you love me or not?" 

"I do, then — there, will that satisfy you?" and Mary looked up 
timidly, with a smile and a sweet expression of the eye, that told 
too truly that she spoke the truth. 

There is a silent language in the eye of woman, that cannot be 
mistaken, for it speaks to the heart of him she loves, with an irre- 
sistible eloquence. It is a language that is understood by the most 
ignorant, as well as the most learned, and in one glance the heart 
may read a volume. That language, when spoken in tears, hath 
an eloquence more sublime than any that ever fell from the lips. 

Though on the tongue there may be guile, 

(That oft in flattery's words appears,) 
And cold deceit in every smile, 

There is no treachery in tears. 

It would be impossible to describe the pleasurable emotions 
that filled the heart of Henry, when the fair girl, with that frank- 
ness which characterised her, avowed her love. Falling upon 
one knee before her, and clasping her hand in both of his, he ex- 
exclaimed — 

"God bless you, dearest Mary, for those blessed words, that have 
given me more real happiness than the possession of the world 
could confer, though it were one huge diamond." 

The Cynic may sneer, and the Stoic look with cold contempt 
on him who bows down in adoration at the shrine of beauty; but 
nevertheless, it is no mean triumph to win the heart of an afl'ec- 
tionate and virtuous woman. Courtship is undoubtedly the hap- 
piest period of the life of man or woman, and few there are who 
do not, in the evening of existence, look back to it with a pleas- 
ing, melancholy regret, as a green spot, an oasis, on the waste of 
memory. 

"You seem to be indulging in a reverie," said Mary, as Henry 
looked up, and saw a large round tear just stealing from under her 
long silken eye-lashes, and rolling down her fair cheek, on which 
the roses of eighteen summers bloomed. 

"Ah! yes, you angel of the earth," answered Henry, "I was 
indulging in a delicious dream of future days." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 207 

"And pray, sir, what was the purport of your luxurious dream?" 
playfully enquired the fair girl. 

"Oh! I fancied that I had wooed and won the lovely Mary 
Mandeville, and, when you spoke, I was enjoying the inexpres- 
sible pleasure of standing with her at the altar. Oh! Mary, Hea- 
ven send the day when I shall, in reality, lead you to the altar, and 
can say, in triumph, 

' You are my own, my own for life.' " 

"Why, Henry," said Mary, "I wonder that you think of a poor 
simple girl like me, when there is many a high-born, talented, and 
elegantly educated young lady, whose fortunes and affections a 
young man like you might win. I'm sure you would be much 
happier with such an one, between whose soul and your own 
there would be a mutual communion. Do you not think so?" and 
she bent on him a searching glance from her angelic eye, that be- 
trayed every word she had uttered. 

"I do not think so," returned Henry, with emphasis. "I have 
ever observed that high-born ladies, as you call them, who are 
educated in all the cold conventional forms of society, are haughty 
in their demeanor; formal and repulsive in their manners, and 
deficient in sentiment, as well as sensibility. Ladies of the haut 
ton, whose heads have been crammed with learned lumber; who 
have acquired a character for talent, and whose reasoning powers 
are as talkative as the Barber in the Arabian Nights, are as cold 
as the snows on the Alleghanies. Reason and Love never could, 
and never will agree, and just in proportion as reason predominates 
over the mind of a lady, she becomes masculine, and loses those 
gentle, affectionate, feminine graces, which are so much admired 
by our sex. Give me a girl whose soul is all simplicity, unpolluted 
by the conventional forms and notions of society. T prefer the 
native simplicity of the wild flower of the field, to the more gor- 
geous, but less sweet one, that has been forced in the hot-house." 

"Oh! Mary, Mary, there's a fortune-teller on the street," said 
a little girl, who came running into the room. " You said you 
wanted your fortune told — let me call her in." 

"Oh! yes," exclaimed the lively Mary, "let's have our fortunes 
told — call her in, Lucy." 

"Is it possible you believe in such nonsense?" asked Henry. 

"No, indeed, Henry, I believe in no such folly; but her stories 
will be a source of amusement, besides putting a penny in the 



208 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

poor creature's pocket," answered Mary, as she laughed heartily 
and threw a bewitching glance at her lover. 
" But you are encouraging idleness, Mary." 
"Oh! well, never mind that, in a poor, old decrepid woman, 
who is unable to work — but hush, here she comes; poor old 
creature!" and again Mary laughed at the idea of having her 
fortune told, though in truth she was like many others, a little 
superstitious. 

" Bring me a coffee cup. Miss," commanded the old woman, 
'•and some coffee grounds, if you have any!" 

Mary went tittering to the cupboard, and brought them. 
"You need not laugh," said the old woman, in a hollow, sepul- 
chral tone, and with a solemnity that checked Mary's mirth, " I 
shall tell you the truth, and it may be something that you may have 
cause to weep over yet." 

"What do you see?" enquired the fair girl, unable to suppress 
a smile, as the old woman turned the cup round and round in her 
hand, and pronounced some mysterious words. 

" You are, or will be addressed by a young man, who will — let 
me see, there is another character. Yes, he will woo you, and 
win your hand, with the consent of the third person, who appears 
to have been your benefactor and best friend." 

" Shall we be married?" asked Mary, as she archly looked up 
into the face of Henry, and smiled. 

" Wait a moment, Miss, there are clouds passing, and, though 
you are now happy, there appears to be misery in store for you." 
"What is it?" enquired Mary, in a little more serious tone, at 
the same time fixing her eyes on the enchanted cup. 

"I cannot exactly see," answered the fortune-teller, "but you 
will suffer much distress of mind, and shed many tears." 

" But will I be married ?" she again asked, at the same time en- 
deavoring to become more cheerful. 

" No, you will never marry; but it will be your own fault." 
" Oh! well, I shall have the whip in my own hand," said Mary, 
forcing a smile, which did not spring from mirth. 

"You will suffer great distress of mind," continued the fortune- 
teller, " though you will be entirely innocent of that over which 
you will sigh and weep many a bitter night." 

The gay and cheerful girl had, at this juncture, become quite 
serious ; her bright eyes were still fixed on the cup. The fact that 
the fortune-teller had hit several parts of her history, staggered 
her, and cold chills crept over her. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 209 

"Do you see any thing more?" enquired Mary. 

" Yes. The very man who is your friend and benefactor, will 
be made the innocent cause of all your woes." 

"Strange!" ejaculated Mary, as a shudder run over her. 

"Ha! I see it! I see it!" suddenly exclaimed the old woman. 

" See what?" asked Mary, as she started from her seat. 

" I see a wounded and bleeding heart, and something in the 
distance, which I cannot distinguish. Ah! now I see," said she, 
after a pause, "it is a long funeral procession." 

"Oh! forbear!" exclaimed the affrighted girl, on whose imagi- 
nation the old woman's incantation had wrought a spell. " For- 
bear for mercy's sake!" and she clung to Henry, while her lips 
quivered, and her face became pale as the sheeted dead. 

"Dear Mary," said Henry, "be not alarmed at such nonsense. 
It was wrong in you to encourage such trickery." 

" Say not so, Henry — I thought so myself, at first. You do not 
know how true many things she told me which have taken place, 
and I sincerely believe, now, that the rest will come to pass." 

"Nonsense, Mary, discharge it from your mind, and when we 
meet again you will be ready to laugh at your folly. Your fears are 
but bugbears of the brain; mere creatures of the imagination, that 
will disappear before the light of reason." 

The hour was growing late, and Henry took his hat and bade 
her good night. In vain did the now gloomy girl endeavor to 
reason away the prophecies of the fortune-teller. The more she 
thought of the circumstances she had described so truly, the more 
did she believe that all would prove true. 

When Mary retired to her chamber, she threw herself upon the 
bed, and endeavored to reason away the gloomy thoughts, which 
the fortune-teller's prophecies had caused to take possession of 
her mind. 

'• There must be truth in what I have heard," thought she, " or 
else the old woman had some mysterious power, by which she has 
put a spell upon me. How did she know that I had a friend and 
benefactor, and that I was, or would be addressed' by a gentleman, 
who would win my affections? And then she seemed to see the 
very clouds that were gathering over my mind. But how is my 
friend to become the means of all the distress that I am to endure? 
there is surely something strange in the matter. Oh ! how in 
the world could she have thought of »he wounded and bleeding 
heart, and the funeral procession, if there had not been something 
in it? I shudder when I think of it, and, somehow or other, I 
27 



210 WRITINGS OP THE MiLFORD BARD. 

have had a presentiment, for some time, that something was going 
to happen. I thought I had been too happy, of late, for it to last 
long. Heaven grant that the fate she foretold, may not befall me! 
But I can't help thinking of the bleeding heart — funeral proces- 
sion — black hearse — mourning — " 

At this juncture of musing, that delicious dreaminess and con- 
fusion of the senses that precedes sleep, came over her; her bril- 
liant and beautiful eyes, which had been fixed on the shadowy 
wall, gradually closed, and she fell into a slumber. She had not 
long indulged, ere that hag of the night, the night-mare, appeared! 
Her beautiful head was thrown back over her pillow, over which 
streamed the rich profusion of her unbound hair, and her spirit 
wandered in the land of dreams. But her's was not a dream of 
love and happiness, though love was mingled with it. She fancied 
that she was addressed by a gay, young man; that she was beloved, 
and loved in return; that her hand was solicited in marriage; but, 
when she was about to give it, a dark spirit appeared before her, 
and bade her forbear, at the same holding up before her a wounded 
and bleeding heart. She heard voices denouncing her fair fame — 
she was pursued by many phantoms, and when she fled for pro- 
tection to her friend and benefactor, she found that he could not 
protect her. The fortune-teller appeared before her. 

"Did I not tell you the truth?" said she. "Though innocent, 
you are doomed to die, but not without torture. Your anguish 
will be too great for human endurance. See! yonder comes your 
own funeral procession." 

Mary looked in the direction the withered finger pointed, and 
so great was her terror, that with one effort of volition she awoke, 
shuddering and trembling in every limb. 

The next morning, when she appeared at the breakfast table, 
she related her dream, and expressed herself satisfied that some- 
thing would happen, to mar her happiness. In vain did her friends 
endeavor to obliterate from her mind this idea. When she returned 
to the store, she related to her friends and companions the story 
of the fortune-teller, and the substance of her dream, and, with a 
solemn countenance, avowed that something would happen. 
Though it was a subject of mirth and ridicule to them, at which 
they laughed heartily, she still maintained the belief that the days 
of her happiness were nearly ended, and that the fortune-teller's 
prophecies would all prove true. So much was her mind prepos- 
sessed with the idea, that, in a great measure, she lost her gaiety 
and cheerfulness. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 211 

Time passed on, and nothing transpired to keep alive the re- 
membrance of the fortune-teller's story; but Mary had not forgot- 
ten one single incident. 

" Well, Mary," said Emma Slransbury, one beautiful morning 
in August, as she stopped at the store, " the fortune-teller's pro- 
phecy has not been verified yet?" 

" No," said Mary, " but as the Augur said to Caesar, the Ides of 
March are not passed yet." 

" You'll forget it, Mary, in the election times, when nothing is 
talked of but the candidates." 

" And if she don't," added Mr. Whitefield, " she will, when she 
is married to that nice young man that you wot of, Emma." 

Mary blushed, and Emma left the store. 

At the time of which we speak, there was an election on hand, 
and Mr. Whitefield was a candidate. Party spirit ran high; some 
degrees above blood-heat; and, as usual, every thing, derogatory 
to the character of the different candidates, was raked up from the 
kennel of defamation. Every thing, that was calculated to injure 
the candidate, and prevent his election, was gathered or invented 
by his opponents, and vice versa. Thus far, there was not much 
harm done; but alas! in this case the candidates were not the 
only sufferers in point of character. The peace, the happiness of 
one, who was totally unconnected with the election, was wrecked, 
blighted forever; and a dagger planted in the hearts of her friends, 
the wound from which can never be healed. The bleeding heart 
was, indeed, to be realized. 

Oh God! would that I could cover, as with a mantle, the re- 
membrance of the fate of the unhappy Mary Mandeville! Ah! 
what a sudden transition did she experience from the brightest 
bliss, to the darkest despair ! Graced wi(h every thing that could 
render her lovely, the landscape of life arose before her in all the 
brightness and beauty of sunshine and flowers. Charming indeed 
was the prospect that opened before her, destined to be oversha- 
dowed with clouds and darkness! 

Mary had, one evening, been to a party, where she had enjoyed 
much pleasure, and had been much admired for her beautiful 
simplicity, and brilliant conversation. She was in high spirits, in 
remembrance of her triumphs that evening, and was gaily singing 
a favorite song, when her friend Emma Stransbury entered. 

"Oh! Mary, how can you be so lively at such a time?" enquired 
Emma, with a look of astonishment. 



212 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

"At such a time? Why? — what do you mean, Emma?" asked 
Mary, with a look of still greater astonishment. 

" Why have you not heard the report concerning you?" 
" Oh no, — what is it?" 

The tender-hearted Emma covered her face, and burst into tears. 
"Mary, indeed, indeed I cannot tell you; but for the world I 
would not that it should have been so." 

"For mercy's sake tell me what the report concerning me is?" 
Mary said imploringly, as she trembled, and the recollection of the 
fortune-teller rushed to her mind. "Do not, I beseech you, keep 
me a moment longer in this terrible suspense." 

"Oh! how can I become," exclaimed Emma, with an agonizing 
sigh, "the executioner of your hopes and happiness! But you 
oughts" 

"Tell me! tell me! for mercy's sake!" screamed Mary. 
" Be calm, my dear, and though it is painful to me to be the 
bearer of such tidings, you shall hear." 

Emma, still weeping, paused a moment to overcome her emo- 
tions. The rich bloom had suddenly fled from the fair cheek of 
Mary, and she stood, trembling like a leaf agitated by the breeze, 
anxious, yet fearing to hear the ominous intelligence. Scarcely 
less acute were the feelings of Emma, than those of her friend ; 
for she felt as if she were about to pronounce the death-warrant 
of one whom she dearly loved, and one, too, who was entirely 
innocent of the breach of any and every obligation. 

" Do you remember, Mary," began Emma, in a tremulous tone, 
not knowing how to begin disclosures, "of having ever been seen 
late at night in company with any gentleman?" 

" Oh I yes, many times," replied Mary with her usual frankness, 
and catching the idea, " when engaged late at the store, Mr. 
Whitefield often attended me home, rather than suffer me to go 
alone in the dark; but what harm was there in that?" 

" Oh! none, none in the world, my dear Mary, it is the duty of 
a gentleman to protect a lady at all times," continued Emma, by 
way of soothing the feelings of her friend, " but more particularly 
late at night, when she is likely to be insulted. You know it is 
the custom in time of elections, to rake up every thing they can 
against the character of the candidates, and so rancorous is the 
spirit of party politics, that where nothing can be found that is 
true, they will invent or fabricate tales to injure and prevent the 
election of the opposing candidate. Don't tremble so, my dear; 
the story is all a mere fabrication." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 213 

Oh!" exclaimed Mary, wringing her hands, " I see it all as the 
fortune-teller told me, and it matters not whether it is true or not — 
you know the way of the world is to condemn, right or wrong, 
guilty or not guilty. Emma, Emma, my peace of mind is gone 
forever — my character, which is dearer to me than life, is blasted — 
I shall be pointed at by the finger of scorn." 

She covered her face with her hands, and shuddered. 

"Nay, nay," said her sympathizing friend, " the public will see 
the motive; the people will discover that the story was an idle 
rumor, without foundation, merely got up, as is usual, to prevent 
the election of a candidate. The best way is to pay no attention 
to it; laugh at it; treat it with contempt." 

"Ah, Emma," returned her friend, with a deep sigh, " you 
know not the ways of the world; you know not the desperate 
wickedness of the human heart; you know not with what avidity 
human nature, cannibal-like, seizes on the mangled character of 
its own kind. You do not know with what a morbid appetite 
people greedily feast on ruined reputation, and it matters not 
whether there is any foundation for the rumor which consigns a 
fellow-being to ruin. Human nature is prone to evil and rejoice 
in the ruin of others, and a tale of scandal, however improbable, 
is seized on with avidity, and retailed with pleasure; while one 
which redounds to the character, is passed by in silence. Truly 
did Shakspeare say — 

'The evil that men do hves after them. 
Whilst the good is oft interred with their bones.'" 

" Very true," rejoined Emma, " A homely proverb says, when 
a person is going down hill, every one gives him a kick; but, my 
dear, your case is very different. There is not the shadow of a 
foundation of the rumor about you — it is merely an electioneering 
story, which will be viewed as such, and will pass away with the 
remembrance of the election. Believe me, they are mere idle 
rumors floating about the community." 

"Oh! deceive not yourself, dear Emma!" exclaimed the weep- 
ing Mary, "the first breath of that rumor sounded the knell of all 
my hopes and happiness. But go on — let me hear the worst, for 
it must come soon or late." 

"Where it originated, Mary," continued Emma, " I do not 
know; but I will do the originator the justice to say, that I believe 
the object to have been alone for political effect, or to prevent the 
election of Mr. Whilefield. I cannot believe that there could have 



214 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



been any concerted plan to injure you, an innocent girl, wholly 
unconnected with politics. The first intimation I heard of the 
matter was the other evening, while sitting with my book at the 
window, the blinds of which concealed me from view. Several 
gentlemen were standing on the pave, when one observed that it 
was a pity such a report was circulated. As I had not intended 
to eave-drop, I sat still, and heard him answer to an interrogatory, 
that the story had gone abroad that there was too much intimacy 
between Miss Mary Mandeville and Mr. Whitefield. Much more 
was said concerning your trip to Philadelphia, and evening walks; 
but I will not pain you by the recital." 

Emma raised her eyes, as she spoke the last words, and saw 
that the face of Mary was pale, and that she was trembling vio- 
lently. In a moment, had she not caught her, she would have 
fallen to the floor, so much was she agitated. When placed in a 
chair, she said faintly — 

" I knew it — it will be just as the fortune-teller said. I have 
seen some happy, some bright days in this world; but they are 
gone forever. I little thought that the circumstance of a gentle- 
man seeing me home at night, would be thus misrepresented ; 
but such is my fate. Not only will it blight my fair name, but all 
my prospects in life." 

"How so, Mary?" 

" You are my friend, my only friend now," replied the unhappy 
Mary, " and I will confide all to you. In the first place I must 
relinquish my situation in the store, and lose my means of sup- 
port." 

" No — there is no necessity for that." 

"Oh! yes; for, otherwise, they might think there is truth in 
the report, and then how could I face persons who came in, who 
would be sure to gaze at me, from curiosity excited by the story. 
Suppose I were to step behind the counter to wait on some lady, 
and she were to turn away in scorn! Oh! the very thought is 
agonizing. You do not know, Emma, that I have been addressed 
by, and am now pledged in marriage to Henry Brandon, from 
which union I promised myself years of happiness; but alas! the 
dream is ended — I shall never be the wife of Henry." 

" Say not so, Mary — he will not credit such idle electioneering 
rumors, and will make them no objections." 

" But I must, Emma. Oh! how my heart aches at this cruel 
blow! Little did she or he know who first whispered the scandal, 
what a dagger it would be to an innocent breast. Oh! what mo- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 215 

merits of misery are in store for me ! How careful people should 
be, in breathing aught that can taint the character of others! 
Never were words truer than those of the poet, 

* Full many a shaft at random sent, 

Finds mark the archer little meant ; 
And many a word at random spoken, 

May soothe or wound a heart that's broken.'" 

Tears gushed from Mary's eyes, as she grasped the hand of 
Emma, and sighed as if her heart would break. 

" But you, Emma," she continued, " you will not forsake me, 
though scorned by the world. I have ever found in you a friend, 
who shared my joys and sympathized in my sorrows." 

" Yes, I will be your friend, Mary, though all others forsake 
you; but do not let your feeling and your fears overcome you; 
cheer up, and believe me, it will all blow over." 

"Do not deceive yourself, Emma; it is the wish and the will 
of the world to believe whatever is evil, or has a tendency to injure 
the character. There is a tendency in human nature to evil, which 
is plainly observable in childhood, and you know how readily 
people grasp at any thing which is derogatory to the character of 
another." 

"This is all very true, my dear," replied Emma, "but when I 
see you again, I hope you will think better of it. There is no 
one, I am satisfied, who would intentionally injure so innocent 
and harmless a creature as you are; and I am sure that these idle 
rumors will soon pass away, and with them the clomi that now 
darkens your mind. So farewell, dear, for the present — may hap- 
pier days soon dawn." 

" Farewell, Emma," returned Mary, with a sigh that seemed to 
be the echo of a sad heart. 

Emma departed, and left Mary to reflect on what she had 
heard ; for Emma, to spare her feelings, through pity, had disclosed 
but part of the rumor. Tt was not long before others dropped in 
to relate what they had heard of the stories in circulation, always 
adding a little, till poor Mary was in a state of mind bordering on 
distraction. The consciousness that she was entirely innocent 
of all and every charge, would have supported her, but for the 
knowledge that the world is disposed to believe whatever has a 
tendency to injure character. The whole story had been gotten 
up for political effect, and in the attempt to defeat the election of 
Mr. Whitefield, the character of an amiable, talented and beauti- 



216 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

ful, as well as an innocent girl, was, alas! to be sacrificed. The 
upright, the virtaous, and intelligent portion of the community, 
turned a deaf ear to the idle tale of scandal, and spurned it; but 
there are, in all communities, some who delight to give currency 
and circulation to any thing which is likely to affect private repu- 
tation. The character of a virtuous woman is more sensitive than 
the fibres of the sensitive plant; if you but breathe upon it the 
breath of suspicion, it shrinks; it pines and perishes. Oh! then, 
how cruel it is, lightly to asperse that, which once wounded, can 
never be healed! One word, idly, carelessly spoken, may blast 
the peace and blight the happiness of years, or perhaps send the 
innocent victim, with a broken heart, to an untimely tomb, after 
having endured agonies unutterable. 

The unhappy Mary retired to her lonely chamber, to weep over 
the wrongs which she could neither resent nor revenge. In her 
grief she humbly bowed down before the merciful one, who 
"tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and prayed fervently, im- 
ploring him to give her strength to bear up against the burthen 
which had been imposed on the innocent. Forced to relinquish 
her situation in the store, by the dark reports concerning herself 
and Mr. Whitefield, she had little to do but to spend her hours 
alone in unavailing regret and grief. 

Mr. Whitefield, indignant at the attempt to injure him, and en- 
raged at the cruelty of slabbing at him through the innocent heart 
of a beautiful young lady, who was to be sacrificed on the altar of 
political enmity to him, in vain endeavored to trace the scandal to 
its original fountain. Its branches were like those streams, whose 
sources are lost amid the inaccessible recesses of a mighty mountain. 

"Where are you going this morning!" enquired Mrs. Sunder- 
land of her daughter Julia, as she put on her bonnet to go out. 

"Why mother, I'm only going to see Mary Mandeville's new 
dress, that she made, and that every body so much admires." 

" No, indeed. Miss, you're going to see no Mary Mandeville, 
nor Womanville either," said the mother, playing on the name. 

" Why not, mother? Every body likes Mary Mandeville." 

" Is it impossible you havn't heard the reports about her, and, — " 

" No mother, for mercy's sake, what could anybody say about 
so sensible, sweet, and pretty a girl, as Mary Mandeville?" 

" Why, Mr. Whitefield and her have been flirting and walking 
out late at night, in conversation." 

" I don't believe a word of this about Mary," said Julia. 

" Nor I," added her father. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 217 

"But I do," said Mrs. Sunderland, "I foresaw it all — I said it 
would be so, when I used to see Mr. Whitefield going by here 
with her late at night. Now, Julia, I tell you once for all, you must 
from this moment drop your visits there, and you must not by 
any means be seen with her on the street." 

" But I do not believe the scandal. Ma." 

"But other people will," returned Mrs. Sunderland, "and what 
will they think of you, if you keep her company? No, no; you 
shall never darken her door again." 

"Well, I believe you're right," said Mr. Sunderland. "People 
are known by the company they keep, and, poor thing, if people 
believe she's that sort of a girl, it's all the same to all intents and 
purposes as if she were. She's a ruined girl, that's certain, 
whether she's innocent or not. If people once get a thing into 
their heads it might as well be so, for they'll have it so." 

"That's my opinion precisely," said Mrs. Sunderland, "and 
who'd a thought I'd hit the nail so on the head? I some how 
always thought it would turn out so." 

" Well, I believe I'll go and see poor Mary," said Julia, " if it's 
for the last time that — " 

"But you shan't," returned her mother, and Julia went pouting 
to the parlor to put away her bonnet. 

Time, the usual soother of sorrow rolled on, but every day 
added to the wretchedness of Mary Mandeville. One by one, as 
the report went abroad, her old friends and companions dropped 
off and deserted her, and when she met them on the street they 
turned their faces another way until they passed. Ah ! how true 
it is, that friendship is like our philosophy; when we need it the 
most, we have the least of it. Those who had crowded around 
her in her sunny days, forsook her at the very hour when she 
needed their friendship most. True indeed are the words of Ovid, 
the Latin poet — 

" Tempore felici, multi numerantur amici, 
Si fortuna perit, nullus amicus erit. " 

Which may be translated thus — " In prosperity we can discover 
many friends! but if fortune fails, not one is to be found." Thus 
it was with poor Mary. Often, when necessity compelled her to 
go upon the street, cruel remarks met her ears, that went to her 
heart like keen daggers. One day, when going to see a sick per- 
son, she walked behind several ladies whom she recognized, but 
who did not recognize her; for she had become entirely negligent 
28 



218 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

of her dress, and that anguish which was continually preying upon 
her mind, like the vulture upon the liver of Prometheus, had paled 
her face, and made such ravages upon her features, that she did 
not look like the same beautiful Mary, though still beautiful. 

" Well, for my part I pity Mary Mandeville," said Anne Roland- 
son, "for I don't believe a word of the scandalous tale." 

" I do," replied Elizabeth Munson. 

"And I, too," added Jane Freylee. 

"And I, three," rejoined Jeannette Templeton. "I believe it, 
and it will teach that proud girl not to carry her head so high in 
future, when she has a bevy of beaux around her." 

" Yes," added Jane, who had once been the professed bosom 
friend and confidant of Mary, " I never saw as proud a flirt in 
all my life, and pride for once has got a fall. I heard the dashing 
young Dandlethorpe talking about her to-day." 

"I never saw as proud and haughty a thing in all my days," 
added Jemima Jessup. " She thought she knew more than any 
body else, and when at a party, she was always showing her genus, 
by talking big words about that poetry of the Paradise Lost, that 
was made by Walter Scott ; and Shakspeare's Lady of the Lakes, 
and Byron's Night Thoughts, and all such nonsense. She always 
had a gang of young fellers round her, and they only made sport 
of her, if she did but know it." 

" Such," thought Mary Mandeville, as she turned a corner of 
the street and left them, " are what we call friends, and such is the 
friendship of this hollow-hearted world. There go five, who were 
once my bosom friends ; who professed to love me with all their 
nearts; and who considered it no mean honor to be considered 
my associates. No sooner am I assailed by the tongue of slander, 
which might blast them at a breath, as easily as myself, than four 
out of five are my bitter enemies, and profess to believe that, of 
which there is not the shadow of proof. Oh! if human friendship 
be made of such stuff, I desire no more of it. Only one of the 
five is exempt from that mean spirit of envy, which sows the path 
of life with discord, hatred and revenge. But one, out of the five, 
remains the same in adversity, as in prosperity — 'but one is a 
friend in need.' " 

Thus did Mary muse. Misfortune had broken a seal, and 
opened to her sources of knowledge she had never dreamed of. 
She had hitherto believed every heartless profession of friendship, 
but now she saw herself deserted by the very friends she prized, 
and she awoke from her dream of bliss to find how false, how hoi- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 219 

low-hearted they were. She remembered their protestations of 
friendship, that no time or change or circumstances were ever to 
alter or obliterate, and she sighed over the fickleness and faithless- 
ness of human nature. 

But Mary consoled herself with the thought that, though deserted 
by all her other friends. Emma Stransbury would still cleave to 
her, and sympathize in her sorrows. Emma visited her every 
evening, when not particularly engaged, and seemed very assiduous 
in soothing the lacerated feelings of her friend, and in endeavor- 
ing to cheer her drooping spirit. 

With the view of diverting her mind from her daily and nightly 
subject of grief, Mrs. Gladson, an own sister to Mary's mother, 
made a very splendid party, and invited many young ladies and 
gentlemen. Bitter as death to Mary was the thought of appearing 
in a circle of society in which she once shone as the centre and 
the soul ; the brightest of the beautiful and most admired ; but 
how could she decline going, when her aunt had put herself to so 
much trouble on her account. Her refusal would be an insult, 
and then her aunt persuaded her, that it would be the best way to 
kill the effects of the slander which had gone abroad. 

Mary, after much misgiving, at last acquiesced ; and after adorn- 
ing herself in a neat manner, sat down to wait for Emma, who, 
she hoped, would call in as she passed on her way. Sure enough, 
about three o'clock Emma entered her boudoir. 

"Why, Mary, I thought you were determined not to go," said 
Emma, with much surprise, and seemingly, with chagrin. 

Mary's mind was quick, and could read a motive in the very 
tone of the voice. 

" Perhaps Emma, you did not wish me to go," said Mary. 
"Oh! I — I — I — , yes, I expected you to go; but, dear me, I 
have forgotten something, and perhaps you had better not wait," 
said Emma with some confusion. " I must go home first, and it 
will be so long before I return." 

" I will go home with you, as I would like to have company," 
and as Mary spoke, suspecting for the first time that Emma 
wished to avoid her company on the street, she fixed her large 
dark eye full upon her, watching every varying expression. 

" No, my child, you had better go on, for I shall be late and " 

" Tell me the truth," interrupted Mary, with rather a contemptu- 
ous look, " do you not wish to avoid my company?" 

" Well, Mary, T will tell you, provided you will promise not to 
be offended." 



220 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

" I can easily promise you that," returned Mary, with mingled 
feelings of sorrow and disgust, " after the many exhibitions of 
friendship that I have seen lately." 

" I would not care myself, Mary, but aunt Susan and brother 
Ab declare that I must not walk in public with you." 

The wretched Mary sunk into a chair and gasped for breath. 
She dreaded to go to the party, and yet she could not be ungrate- 
ful for the kindness shown her, as the party had been made ex- 
pressly on her account. She sat and wept some time after Emma 
had gone, then rose, wiped her eyes, and with feelings not to be 
envied, took her way to Mrs. Gladson's, in whose parlor a large 
number had assembled. Confused by the gaze of so many, and 
blushing deeply, she withstood the first shock, and tottered to a 
chair; for she was ready to drop on the floor. That evening con- 
tained hours of agony to Mary, but she suffered on through them, 
rather than show disrespect to the hostess, who was endeavoring 
to be her friend. Some of the ladies, who had once been familiar 
with her, now affected to have no acquaintance, and while all the 
rest seemed one band of sisters, she alone sat solitary and unob- 
served, save when some gentleman pointed to her slily, and made 
her the subject of remark. Several ladies called for their bonnets 
and departed, saying loud enough to be heard by Mary, 

"Come, let's go; we cannot associate now with Miss Mande- 
ville — I wonder at Mrs. Gladson to invite her," 

" True enough, with the character she bears," added another. 

"I wonder if it's true?" enquired a third. 

"Well, there seems some ground for it," answered a fourth. 

"But what grounds?" asked the third lady, as they lingered at 
the door, for some gentleman to attend them. 

" I'll tell you," whispered the other. "Mr. Wigglesworth says 
that he had it from Mr. Thompson, the baker, whose wife told him 
that she was confidentially informed by Mrs. Inskeep, that her 
brother told her that he was in company with a gentleman of great 
veracity, who saw Mr. Whitefield walking late at night with Mary 
Mandeville, and that they were conversing together." 

Mary, during this tete-d-tete, was sitting at a window near the 
door, the shutters of which were closed. She could hear every 
word, though spoken in a suppressed voice, and her heart ached 
at the thought that those who had once sought her society so ea- 
gerly, should thus give credence to a rumor on such slight foun- 
dation. While she still sat at the window, a gentleman of the haut 
ion, who had often visited her, and had been an ardent admirer of 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 221 

her beauty, took up his hat, and proceeded to the door, on the 
outside of which the ladies were standing, nearly under the window. 

"What was that you were saying of Mary Mandeville?" en- 
quired the gay, dashing young Francis Manley. "Ah! I could 
tell you something concerning her that you haven't heard, but 
come," said he to his sister, "I'll tell you as we go along." 

As he spoke, the bevy of ladies, who had once been the parti- 
cular friends of Mary, left the precincts of the building, and she 
was saved the mortification of hearing the inuendo. She now 
anxiously longed for the hour of retirement, that she might fly to 
her secluded chamber, and pour out in tears the tide of grief from 
her unhappy heart. In the midst of company she felt like an iso- 
lated being, for though every eye was upon her, there was no sym- 
pathy of soul between her and the gay, happy beings around her, 
who but a little time before, ere the blighting breath of slander 
had fallen upon her fair fame, had been delighted to come at her 
call, and to own her the fairy May queen, and the centre of the 
circle of society in which they had moved. Often during the 
evening, did she mentally repeat the exquisite lines of Moore — 

" I feel like one, who treads alone, 
Some banquet hall deserted ; 
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, 
And all but me deserted." 

It has ever appeared strange to me, that females should be 
so severe against one of their own sex, who really, through the 
villainy of man, steps into the path of error, or who, by idle, un- 
founded rumor is said to have done so. But it is a lamentable 
fact, that when a lady does, through the base arts of villainous 
man, overstep the bounds of decorum, or is only said to have done 
so, by the tongue of slander, the whole sex come forth open- 
mouthed against her, and hunt her down to shame through every 
lane of life. While pity for her misfortune drops from the 
lips of man, thunders of denunciation fall from the tongue of 
woman. She has no mercy for the foibles of one of her own sex. 
But whenever I have enquired why they are so severe against a 
fallen sister, my question has been met with a powerful argument, 
that if they were not thus severe, many more would fall. The se- 
verity and the certainty of the punishment, say they, saves many 
from wandering into the paths of error. 

The party at length broke up, and poor Mary found that it was 
not as it once had been. Every lady now seemed anxious to avoid 



222 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

going home with her. The time had been when every one was 
striving which should have the honor of taking her arm, but now 
she was left to trudge her way alone. Mary keenly felt this ne- 
glect, for there is no one so independent as not to be susceptible to 
such slights. The ladies and gentlemen were all paired off, save 
Mary and one wild young fellow who had been slily winking at 
her all the evening, thus presuming to insult her, on the strength 
of the reports which he had heard concerning her and Mr. White- 
field. He offered to attend her home, but she repulsed him and 
went alone. 

It would be vain to attempt to describe the feelings of Mary, as 
she slowly moved along, reflecting on the occurrences of the even- 
ing. Never had she spent such an evening before. She had al- 
ways been the star, the guiding genius, and leading spirit of every 
party. The admired of all, both for her talents and her beauty, 
she had ever been the centre of attraction round which all others 
moved. Oh ! how keenly did she feel the change. We judge and 
enjoy every thing by contrast, and by contrast is our misery often 
measured. When Mary contrasted that evening, and the treatment 
she had received, with the happy days that were gone forever, 
when she was idolized, worshipped, and her slightest wish antici- 
pated, her bosom swelled with emotion, and tears trickled from 
her eyes. 

The full moon was hanging high in the hall of heaven, like a 
silver chandelier, and Mary, as was her wont, stopped a moment 
to muse on that beautiful orb. But how sad were her meditations ! 
But a month before she had stood at the side of Henry, gazing at 
the same moon. Oh! how happy she was then, ere the blight of 
scandal had fallen upon her fair fame. It was then that she pledged 
her heart and hand to Henry, whom she dearly loved, and she 
would have given the world to feel as she then felt. She shud- 
dered as the recollection came upon her that she was now a 
blighted flower, blasted by the withering breath of slander. Would 
Henry now take her to his arms — now that she had become a 
mark for the finger of scorn to point at? Would he rejoice in the 
possession of the hand of her whose reputation was the sport of 
slander; whose honor had become a by-word and a reproach? 
Oh! the thought was madness. She could not bear to think of it. 

Scarcely had the unhappy girl withdrawn her eyes from the 
moon and passed on, when she beheld some object emerging from 
the shadow of the court-house. As she approached, the fortune- 
teller crossed her path, and so suddenly did her appearance recall 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 223 

to her mind the ominous words of the prophecy, that feelings of 
superstitious terror crept over her, and she fled hastily. No sooner 
did she reach home, than she repaired to her room, but not to 
sleep. Oh! no; sleep, 

"Like the world, his ready visit pays 

Where fortune smiles ; the wretched he forsakes ; 
Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe, 
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear." 

So it was with the lovely, the innocent, the miserable Mary. 
She threw herself upon the bed, and gave way to that flood of 
grief which had been pent up all the evening. Long and bitterly 
did she weep, and she shuddered when she thought of that bleed- 
ing heart which the fortune-teller spoke of. Many of her predic- 
tions had already transpired, and Mary believed that all would be 
fulfilled. She felt that she was doomed, and that no power on 
earth could avert the fate that must befall her. Tossing from side 
to side she spent the night, and arose next morning dejected and 
dispirited. The sun arose in all his glory, shedding his golden 
light on her flowers at the window, but not a ray of hope's light 
broke into the darkened chambers of her mind. All was dark, 
lonely and desolate. 

Henry Brandon, who had been spending some time in the coun- 
try previous to his expected marriage, now returned to town, and 
with a joyous heart hastened to pay his visit to her, who had be- 
come to him dearer than life. As he was passing along the street 
with a rapid pace towards the residence of Mary, envious ef every 
moment that kept him from her presence, he observed several men 
standing at the corner, who seemed to. be much tickled at some- 
thing that one of the party was relating with singular gesticulation, 
while ever and anon the whole party looked towards him. Not a 
breath of the rumor concerning Mary's reputation had yet reached 
his ears, and little did he dream of the deadly blow that was destined 
to fall upon his hopes and happiness. Brilliant and beautiful was 
the prospect which his fancy had pictured befdre him, when he 
should lead to the altar in triumph that beautiful one, at whose feet 
so many had bowed in adoration, and for whose hand so many had 
sighed in vain. Ah! how soon was this cup of bliss, just tasted, 
to be dashed from his lips, and all his gay visions of hope and 
happiness to disappear, like the sunlight from the landscape, when 
a dark cloud suddenly intervenes. Oh! it was cruel thus to blast 



224 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

at one blow the joyous dream of affection, which he had so long, 
so tenderly, and so dearly cherished. 

" Whither are you travelling so fast?" enquired one of the party. 
" Why you go ahead like a locomotive, and one would suppose 
that he was flying on the wings of love. But I suspect he's going 
to see his old flame." 

" He'll be apt to get his fingers burnt, if he goes there," added 
Paul Freelingham, bursting into a horse-laugh at his wit. 

"Yes," rejoined Tom Bensonby, following up the low wit, 
"and there'll be an explosion of the heart." 

This was followed by a roar of laughter. 

" 1 guess," said Sam Winnersly, who was famed for his punning 
propensity, " that it will be a flaming and flare-up concern through- 
out, when Henry knows how he's been burnt." 

"Gentlemen, I don't understand your inuendoes," said Henry, 
little dreaming of the drift. " You speak of flames, but the subject 
is such that I'm all in the dark, it appears." 

" You'll soon be illuminated," said Sam, " for there's a monstrous 
smoke out." 

"Pshaw! man, why don't you tell him the truth, Winnersly," 
interrogated Tom Bensonby, " The fact is, Henry, it's reported 
in these diggins, that your dulcinea made a contract of marriage 
with Whitefield, who is already a married man — a second wife 
with the first living." 

A tremendous roar of laughter followed 'this slang, for it must 
be borne in mind that these men were all political opponents of 
both Henry Brandon and Mr. Whitefield, and there was a bitter- 
ness in the expression of every word. It is painful at any time to 
become the butt of ridicule, but in this case it was poignantly 
severe, as the subject in part with Henry was a beautiful and vir- 
tuous young lady, whose heart had long been his, and whose 
hand was pledged to him in marriage. 

" Dare not, sir, to breathe one foul word from your polluted lips 
on her fair fame," said he, " or by the eternal Jove you shall answer 
for the base aspersion. Let any man dare to impeach her char- 
acter, which has ever been above suspicion, and it were better he 
had never been born; for know, ye traducers of innocence, that 
not purer are the angels in heaven than she whose name is coupled 
with infamy on your unhallowed lips." 

This speech startled those who were brave enough to attack a 
lady's reputation, but who shrunk from the avowed avenger of in- 
jured innocence. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 225 

"What he told you," replied Paul Freelingham, "is reported 
all over town, and it's no use to get mad at it." 

"Do you know it to be true, sir?" enquired Henry, as he ap- 
proached him in a menacing attitude. "Dare you avow it to be a 
fact? Have you any proof?" 

"Ay, sir, I have been looking for you," exclaimed Mr. White- 
field, who now approached, and who had heard the questions put 
by Henry, "Villain, do you know it to be a fact? Give up your 
author, or stand branded as an infamous fabricator of the foul 
slander which has blasted the peace of an innocent girl, and 
doomed her to shed the bitter tears of sorrow." 

"Oh! I don't know, nor don't care, whether it's true or not," 
replied Paul, "I only heard it about town." 

"Who told you, sir?" enquired Mr. Whitefield, trembling with 
passion, which he in vain endeavored to control. 

"I don't know that I'm bound to tell you," said Paul, becoming 
pale. "I'm not to be frightened, sir." 

"Frightened!" repeated Mr. Whitefield with a sneer. "Why, 
sir, one man who stands forth to avenge the wrongs of an injured 
and innocent lady, is more than a match for a host of cowardly 
assassins, who skulk and stab their victims in the dark. Give me 
your author, sir, or you shall answer on the spot for the base 
slander you have retailed. Shame upon you to blast a lovely lady, 
that you might injure my election!" 

"Well, if you must know my author," returned Paul, "it was 
old Billy Sandwick, and he said he heard some one say that Bob 
Strieker, the cow boy, saw Mary Mandeville walking with some 
gentleman, one dark night, but it was so dark he could not dis- 
tinguish him." 

"And pray how did he distinguish lier?" asked Henry, with a 
look of contempt. "This is like all other stories of the kind, too 
contemptible for any person of sense to listen to." 

"Let it pass," continued Mr. Whitefield. "I have made several 
attempts to trace it to its origin, but in every instance I am met 
with the same pitiful shuffling. Every one has heard it from some 
cow boy, or old woman that dreamed it, and no one started it. 1 
will offer a sum of money for the name of the scandalous author, 
and if I succeed in obtaining it, woe be to him. I do not care as 
it respects myself, for I know the fiendish invention was got up by 
my political opponents to prevent my election; but the mean and 
dastardly stab which has been given to the reputation of a lovely 
lady, whom I have ever regarded as a sister, would excite indigna- 
29 



226 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

tion in the heart of any man who has any pretension to honor, or 
any respect for a virtuous woman." 

Henry, during the last speech of Mr. Whitefield, had started 
with accelerated speed down the street, and the nearer he ap- 
proached the residence of Mary, the more was his heart harrowed 
with the recollection of what had just passed. When he entered 
she was sitting with her back towards him, but no sooner did she 
turn and catch a glimpse of her affianced husband, than she cov- 
ered her face with her hands and burst into tears, while he stood 
wondering at the change in her appearance. 

"Oh! Henry," she exclaimed, sobbing as if her heart would 
break, "with what different feelings do we now meet, from those 
when you were last here!" and as she spoke, the unhappy girl 
wrung her hands in agony, while her dark eyes, from which the 
tears were streaming, were turned towards him imploringly. 

"Mary, dear Mary, what is the matter?" he enquired, feigning 
to be ignorant of the cause of her grief. 

"Oh! Henry," she cried, while she became frantic with grief, 
"I am ruined; blasted forever! My name has been consigned to 
eternal shame, and as the fortune-teller foretold, my best friend, 
by evil tongues, has been made the innocent cause of all my woe. 
Oh ! that I were in the peaceful grave, for I shall never know any 
more happiness in this world." 

"Say not so, dearest Mary; it is but an empty rumor, and will 
soon die away." 

"No, Henry, never, never, till I go down to the grave with a 
broken heart. When all remembrance of me shall have passed 
away, then it may die, and not till then. Oh! Henry," she ex- 
claimed, raising her beautiful eyes, swimming in tears, to his, " it is 
cruel, it is cruel! My persecutors, I think, would relent, could 
they but know the pangs that have wrung my heart, and the many 
hours I have spent in unavailing agony. My friends and com- 
panions have all forsaken me; they shrink from me as from a thing 
of pollution, and my name has gone forth as another word for 
shame. Oh! I am sure I do not deserve it; and I was so happy 
when you were here before. I then thought that a life of joy was 
just opening before me, but I am doomed to misery." 

" Nay, Mary, dear Mary, be more calm. I do not believe a word 
of the villainous slander, and why should conscious innocence 
shrink beneath unmerited censure?" 

"But, dear Henry, the wicked world will believe a tale of 
scandal, however preposterous it may be, and dearly have I reason 



• WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD, 227 

to know that it believes this shameful story. Oh! yes, it makes 
my heart ache to think, that those who once dearly loved me be- 
lieve every word of it, for they have flung me from their bosoms 
like a worthless weed. Oh! my heart will break! My heart will 
break!" — and she rushed wildly across the room, wringing her 
hands in an agony of grief. 

"Dear Mary, be more calm," said Henry, as he took her hand. 
"Do not, I beseech you, give way to the violence of your feelings." 

"I cannot help it — I cannot help it, Henry. Oh! no, I cannot 
help it," she exclaimed, and with one scream she tottered back- 
wards, and fell fainting in the arms of Henry. 

Instantly he bore her sylph-like form to a couch; ran for some 
water, and, without calling for assistance, bathed her face, from 
which every trace of the roses that had lately bloomed there was 
gone. For some time he stood, as if spell-bound, watching the 
symptoms of gradually returning consciousness, while his bosom 
swelled with mingled emotions of pity and indignation. Where 
indeed is the heart, so dead to all the finer feelings of our nature, 
that it would not melt in pity, at seeing an amiable, beautiful and 
innocent being thus stricken down ? And where is the man whose 
spirit would not flash with indignation at so heartless a deed ? For 
oh! how keen, how killing, how cruel must that grief have been, 
which could thus so suddenly hurl reason from her throne, and 
prostrate all the energies of life? 

"Oh! cruel, cruel act!" mentally exclaimed Henry, as he stood 
with clasped hands, still watching the pale and almost inanimate 
form before him. "Could those who inflicted this deadly blow on 
her whose gentle heart never breathed a wish to injure any one — 
could those who have thoughtlessly given currency to the rumor, 
which has blasted her peace of mind, and given her days to 
misery — ay, could he, who first invented the calumny, behold her 
now, for I will not believe that one of her own sex could be so 
cruel, how would compunction seize upon him, and wring his soul 
with torture! Alas! how often do people laugh and sport over the 
ruined reputation of an innocent one, who never did them harm; 
how little do they think that the scandal which is the subject of their 
thoughtless mirth is blighting the hopes, carrying desolation to a 
heart that is breaking with anguish ! A careless word, a single 
look or nod, may sometimes, though said or done in merriment, 
make a wound which time can never heal. It may rankle in the 
heart, long after the remembrance of the word or look hath passed 
away and been forgotten." 



228 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

While Henry thus mused, and with bitter feelings contrasted 
this meeting with the happy one before, when, with smiles and 
modest downcast looks, she promised to be his bride; Mary 
opened her eyes, and for some time gazed upon him with a 
mournful look, that seemed to penetrate his soul. 

"Ay! Henry," she at length said, gently putting her hand on 
his, "I told you there was truth in what the fortune-teller said. 
Yes, Henry, the bleeding heart is realized here," and she put her 
hand upon her bosom, as tears again gushed from her eyes and 
trickled down her cheeks. 

"You are melancholy, Mary; shake off this night-mare of the 
mind — there are happier days in store for you." 

"Nay, never," she replied, with a deep sigh. "You say that I 
am melancholy. Is it not strange that I am not more — that I am 
not distracted? Oh! is it not enough to drive me mad, mad, 
mad!" and as she spoke, her eyes dilated and she stared at him 
with such an unearthly look, that he shuddered; for he fancied, 
from the wild flashing of her eyes, that the demon of mania was 
about to take possession of the desolate chambers of her brain. 

"Is it strange," she continued, "that I should be gloomy, when 
all that woman holds dear has been rudely blighted? Is it strange 
that I should be melancholy, when my good name has been cou- 
pled with shame, and is repeated with persecution and scorn at 
every corner of the street? Is it strange, I say, when all my 
friends have deserted me — when they fly from me as if my pre- 
sence was pollution — when the finger of contempt is pointed at 
me, and reproach pursues me through every lane of life? Oh! 
Henry," she continued, her voice growing louder and louder, un- 
til the last words were uttered in a wild scream, "is it not strange 
that I am not mad, when even mothers forbid their daughters to 
associate with poor, persecuted Mary, whose heart never knew a 
single stain, and never wronged a human being?" 

"Be calm, dear Mary," said Henry, soothingly, "I will not be- 
lieve it, and though the heartless, whose friendship is of little value, 
may forsake you, I will be your friend; I will still love you while 
life endures. But, Mary," he continued, seeing that she became 
more calm, "the people, — I mean those whose opinions are to be 
prized, will spurn the accusation against so good, so sweet a girl — 
they will never believe it for a moment, and you will finally come 
forth shining like gold tried in the fire." 

"Oh! Henry," she exclaimed, as she struck her noble forehead 
with her fair hand, as if some painful thought had just flashed 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 229 

through her brain, "you are deceived, you are deceived. They 
will — they do believe it now. I am undone! Oh! what could a 
poor weak girl do to merit this? Go walk the street, and my 
name is on every tongue. Oh! would to heaven that he who first 
blighted my fair fame, had plunged a dagger to my heart, for then 
would I have gone to the grave with a reputation unstained, and 
have escaped all the miseries I am doomed to endure!" 

" But, Mary, you are innocent, and- " 

"Oh! Henry! Henry!" exclaimed the frantic girl, wringing her 
hands and interrupting him, "it matters not if I were purer than 
the angels of Heaven; for so delicate is woman's reputation, that 
if the breath of suspicion be but once breathed upon it, it is blast- 
ed, ruined forever. It matters not how innocent that woman may 
be, on whose fair fame slander fixes its envenomed fangs; the 
moment that rumor cries out shame, she is lost, undone. Oh! yes, 
Henry, Heaven is witness that I am innocent of every base charge 
that the thousand tongues of rumor have scattered abroad; but 
what does conscious innocence avail me in this world! The tale 
of scandal is believed, for there is a proneness in human nature to 
believe the worst, and as it regards the effects, my reputation, 
which is dearer to me than life, is ruined; and I am doomed to 
suffer the same misery as if the tale were true." 

Henry saw that the mind of Mary was on the very verge of de- 
spair, and that agitating the subject of her grief, might drive her to 
utter distraction, and he resolved to leave her for the present, in 
hope that quiet would restore her to composure. Indeed, he was 
sorry that he had not delayed his visit beyond the time of his arri- 
val, that time might have softened the poignauce of her grief; for 
in its freshness, her mind required but a little more excitement to 
drive her beyond the bounds of sanity, and hurry her into the 
dreadful abyss of mania. Alas! he little knew the extent of the 
nature of that wound which had been made in her heart. He 
dreamed not that it was incurable and mortal; had he even im- 
agined it, his mind would have been driven to a degree of sorrow 
but little less than her own. It is a wise provision of nature, that 
we cannot look through the telescope of time into the dark, 
boundless future, and read the destiny that awaits us. Whether 
that destiny were good or bad, we should be miserable; for if 
good, we would become sick of hope deferred, we would become 
weary of waiting its approach; and if bad, our souls would sink 
at the prospect. 



230 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Well, farewell Mary, dearest Mary," said Henry, tenderly tak- 
ing her beautiful white hand in his, "I will come again, when I 
hope to see you more cheerful, and wearing those blissful smiles 
with which you once greeted my approach." 

She slowly turned her head, from which her dark hair fell in 
clustering curls, and fixing her eyes upon his with a mournful 
look, she said in a melancholy tone — 

"Deceive not yourself, dear Henry, I shall never be cheerful 
again on this side of the grave. My hopes and my happiness are 
buried in my heart, and the smile that henceforth illumines my 
face, will be like moonlight on a burial stone." 

As she spoke, tears trickled from her eyes, and so sad did she 
look, and so mournful was her voice, that his heart melted with 
sympathy, and he was compelled to turn away to hide his emotion 
and his tears, for men are always foolishly ashamed to exhibit that 
tenderness of feeling which is an honor to human nature. A lady 
once observed to me that she had never seen any thing in nature 
so awful as a man weeping — that the sight inspired her with feel- 
ings of awe that no other scene could ever inspire. But for my- 
self, I am not averse to such a sight, for tears are the evidence of 
a feeling, sympathetic heart. Caesar did not like Cassius because 
he never smiled, though Shakspeare tells us that a man may smile, 
and smile, and be a villain. If, as Caesar thought, a smile is the 
evidence of a generous and feeling heart, how much more so are 
tears, which must ever spring from the fountain of feeling. What 
Shakspeare has said is true — a man may smile, and smile, and be 
a villain; but I do not believe in what are called crocodile tears. 
No, a hard heart, a heart that has become callous, and is lost to 
feeling, never weeps. Physiology itself would deny the possibility 
of counterfeited weeping. The sac which secretes and holds the 
tears in the eye cannot be made to overflow at pleasure — grief, 
sympathy, or some emotion of tenderness must wring the heart 
ere the eye can be made to press upon this sac and force out the 
tears. Thus, it is positively proven that there can be no treachery 
in tears, though a man may smile, and smile, and be a villain. 

My dear reader, will you please to pardon the above episode, as 
I considered it necessary to show that it is not weakness in a man 
to weep; but, on the contrary, is an evidence of manly virtue and 
refined sensibility. 

"My sweet Mary, compose yourself, and drive these thoughts 
from your mind," said Henry, "and I will be your protector, I 
will defend your honor though it cost my life. Yes, dearest girl. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 231 

let but a man dare to breathe one syllable derogatory to your fair 
fame, and by the eternal gods, I swear, that he shall eat every 
base-born word, or answer to me, as one gentleman ever should 
be amenable to another for a wrong? Gentleman, did I say? 
Can he be a gentleman who meanly tramples on a lady's honor? 
Can he be a gentleman who would basely rob from a poor and 
lovely girl the jewel of her soul — who would take from her all that 
gives her value — who would, in the language of Shakspeare, steal 
from her that which not enriches him, but makes her poor indeed? 
No, he is a base-born damnable villain. He, who would thus blast 
a lady's honor — he who would, like the serpent that stole into the 
garden of Eden, destroy innocence in public estimation and blast 
the peace of as pure and lovely a creature as ever breathed, would 
not hesitate to plant a dagger in the dark, in the heart which had 
not offended." 

As Henry uttered these words, his cheek burned with indigna- 
tion, and he stood in a theatrical attitude, with his hand clenched 
and his eyes fixed with a wild stare upon the pale tearful face of 
Mary. As is often the case, and it is a singular phenomenon in 
nature, the emotions of the sweet girl subsided, the moment she 
saw that the heart of her lover and affianced husband, was burn- 
ing with revenge. 

Of all revenge, woman's is the most deadly, the most unrelent- 
ing, when her affections have been trampled upon. She may love 
and be betrayed — still she will bear her wrongs in silence so 
long as the object of her love bows his knee to no other idol; but 
no sooner does he throw off the silken chain that bound him to 
her and acknowledge allegiance to another, than the demon of 
revenge lights up his unhallowed fire on the altar of her heart, and 
she clutches the dagger, which she swears never to relinquish, till 
it drinks the life-blood of the heart that had won her to betray — 
the heart that had basely wronged her. And woman's revenge 
has often been awakened by seeing her proffered love spurned, 
rejected with disdain. Roll back the pages of Sacred Writ and 
we have an example. Potiphar's wife fell in love with the modest, 
religious, gentle Joseph, and though she was a voluptuously lovely 
woman, whose simple smile would have set one of our modern 
hearts on fire, the pious Joseph turned from her; scorned her 
proffered love, and so great was her revenge, that she endeavored 
to destroy his life. 

But Mary Mandeville was one of those gentle creatures who 
never injured, and could not think of injuring any one. Her heart 



232 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

had never known the passion of revenge, and even now, when 
persecution had almost driven her to madness, she breathed not a 
word of bitterness; not a single avenging word against those who 
had so cruelly blasted the bright prospect of life before her, and 
plunged her in the very gulf of despair. When Henry sat down 
beside her, and took her fair hand in his, she looked up mourn- 
fully into his face, and said — 

"Dear Henry, you are very generous to give me your confidence 
and affection, when you do not know but that every word that has 
been said concerning me may be true." 

" Sweet Mary," exclaimed Henry, as he folded her to his bosom, 
and pressed upon her lips a pure impassioned kiss, "there is a 
consciousness in my bosom that one like you cannot be otherwise, 
than pure as the angels are; for were it otherwise, it is in the na- 
ture of things that you could not put on the cloak of deceit so as 
to deceive me. Those who wear that cloak are old in wrong do- 
ing; the pure in heart, in the moment of their fall, cannot hide 
their guilt from the experienced eye; they have not learned the 
art to cover it." 

Poor Mary, at these words, so true to her own consciousness, 
endeavored to smile, for she was pleased to think that Henry had 
confidence in her virtue. If there is one species of pride that fills 
the heart of lovely woman to the exclusion of all others, it is that 
of virtue. And well may she take pride in that, for it is the jewel 
of her soul; it is the charm which in the eyes of man makes all 
the witcheries of woman. Without it, she is nothing. Take from 
the loveliest woman that ever trod the earth, the good name which 
belongs to woman in her high estate, and she at once falls like 
Lucifer, not as Milton presents him falling, "nine days," but for- 
ever, forever. She can never rise again. 

"It is sweet to me to think," said the unhappy girl, still gazing 
in the face of Henry, "that when I am dead and shall be beyond 
the reach of persecution, that you will believe in the purity of this 
heart which is now beating and breaking with anguish. Ah! 
Henry, how sad, how melancholy I feel, when I think of the hour 
when with all a woman's tenderness and all a woman's love and 
hope, I pledged you this poor hand in marriage. It does not 
make me sad to think I pledged it to you, but oh ! how happy I was 
then, Henry! Every thing in life was bright and beautiful. I 
looked forward and saw nothing but happiness — a long life of 
happiness with the man that my heart had chosen. But ah! how 
changed is the prospect! How miserable " 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. 233 

"Dearest Mary," exclaimed Henry, interrupting her, "we can 
still be happy. You are the same to me that you have ever been, 
and I care not for the slanderous " 

"Ah! but / do, dear Henry," returned Mary, as she clasped 
her hands as if in devotion, and lifted her beautiful eyes to heaven, 
"Oh! yes, I must care, for the opinion of the w^orld is the fiat of 
fate." 

"Well, dearest Mary, we are pledged in marriage; let us be 
united in the holy bonds of wedlock, and then let the world say 
what it will. With you I can be happy, and let the tongue of 
slander say what it may, I am satisfied with my own sweet Mary." 

"No, Henry, that never can be. Think you, that I would wed 
and hear the taunting tongue throw the base report that now trou- 
bles me into your teeth? No, Henry, no — Oh! God, my heart will 
burst, my brain grows wild — save me, Henry, save me!" 

The unhappy girl uttered the last words in a wild scream as she 
leaped from her seat beside Henry. She rushed across the floor 
with uplifted arms, and had not Henry followed her, she would 
have fallen to her injury ; but perceiving the extreme paleness of 
her countenance, he stretched his arms just in time to receive the 
lovely burthen on his bosom. She swooned. 

The fair form of the insensible Mary was borne to a bed, where 
she lay some hours with scarcely any signs of life. The sun was 
just sinking below the western horizon, and bathing the distant 
woodlands in his golden flood of light, when Mary once more 
opened in consciousness, those beautiful eyes, into which no man 
could look without feeling a thrill of pleasure, and at the same 
time feeling that she was not only a lovely creature, but that she 
was one who approached as near to what we conceive the angels 
to be, as any of womankind. The roses had perished on her 
cheeks, and yet she was lovely. There is a charm in the expres- 
sion of the human countenance which far surpasses all the bril- 
liance and bloom that ever gave eclat to beauty. Talk of female 
beauty! What is it? Those who judge only by the sight, imagine 
that it is an assemblage of regular features, conjoined with a bril- 
liant eye and fair complexion. But beauty to the man of intel- 
lect, is a far different thing. We look upon a beautiful face with- 
out expression, as we would look upon a picture, that delights the 
eye for a moment, and then palls upon the sight. Not so with 
the face on which the soul of woman beams — on which we read 
all the enraptured feelings of the heart. Oh! no. I have gazed 
into the face, and into the eye of woman, until the very emotions 
30 



234 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

of her soul seemed to become tangible, while from her eye, the 
feelings of her heart appeared to speak with a more irresistible 
eloquence, than ever fell from the tongue of Tully. Such beauty 
hath no transient power. It is not gazed on and passed idly by, 
but its influence every moment gathers strength, till the soul of 
the gazer is led captive in the irrevocable chains of love. 

Such beauty belonged to Mary Mandeville. Even now, when 
her face was as pale as that of beauty that has been decked and 
adorned for the tomb, she was still fascinating, still lovely; and 
few could have gazed upon her pale face as she turned her eye to 
the setting sun, the light of which was streaming in golden radi- 
ance through the window, without feeling a mingled sentiment of 
pity and love. 

It has ever been strange to me that some women (I like the 
word woman; it is more poetical than that of lady) — I say, it has 
ever seemed strange to me, that some women have a fascinating 
power under all circumstances, although when compared, they 
may be inferior in form and features to many others at whose 
shrine the hearts of men scarcely deign to bow. It is evidently 
the soul that gives this proud and imperious charm ; for I have 
seen such fascinating creatures even in sickness exert a sway that 
others could not acquire in the full bloom of beauty. 

Mary turned her languid, but still lovely eye towards the setting 
sun, and calmly said, "See how that sun sets — so shall I go down 
to the grave, and like that sun, Henry, I hope I shall leave a light 
behind me that will dispel the dark shadows that rest upon my 
character. Oh! yes, Henry, I fear not death — but oh! could I 
have met death before my fair fame had been assailed, how happy 
I could have died in your arms as your affianced, or as your wedded 
wife! But alas! I am doomed to die of a broken heart, and 
doomed to die unwed, for Henry, I can never consent to give 
these poor fading charms to one who is worthy of one like Mary 
was, ere the blight of persecution and pollution fell upon her 
name. Oh! Henry, you know I love you with all my heart, and 
in the sight of heaven we are one ; but on earth never, no never, 
can I consent to link my name with yours while on it rests the 
brand of infamy." 

"But, Mary, you are innocent— why will you thus talk? The 
best of God's creation may be assailed by slander, but that is no 
proof of guilt. You are sinful in the sight of heaven by thus 
suffering your mind to dwell upon a phantom, and to make you 
wretched without any real cause." 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 235 

"Say not so, Henry, dear Henry, for you know not the sensi- 
bility of a virtuous woman's heart — you know not the delicacy of 
woman's honor. Oh! a single breath may destroy it, and when 
once destroyed, not all the powers of earth can restore it. As I 
have said before, what matters it whether the charge be true or 
false? — the effect is the same — ruin, eternal ruin. Oh! Henry, 
say no more. I am as much undone as if I were the guiltiest 
wretch on earth." 

The nerves of the unhappy Mary had become so much unstrung, 
that she trembled like an aspen-leaf, and Henry saw that it would 
be unwise to say more on the subject. With the promise that he 
would come again, which she ardently solicited, he arose, took his 
hat, and departed. 

Mary Mandeville had become altogether another being. Once 
gay and happy, she was now gloomy and abstracted. She shunned 
all society, in which she had once shone, and wandered alone, 
amid the sublime solitudes of nature. There, where contempla- 
tion loves to dwell, she communed with herself, and wept over the 
fate that she so little deserved. Almost at times, she was tempted 
to arraign that Almighty Power that guides and governs the uni- 
verse, for the destiny that had come upon her; but in her sober 
reflection, she saw that all her griefs had sprung from the despe- 
rate wickedness of the human heart. 

There was one favorite spot, where Mary in her loneliness, loved 
to stray. It was a skirt of woodland in the eastern suburbs of the 
borough, where she had first seen Henry during a walk. A party 
of ladies and gentlemen were strolling, and in the encounter Mary 
was made acquainted with the man to whom she was now be- 
trpthed, but to whom she refused to fulfil her vows on account of 
her unmerited obloquy. On this spot, now sacred to the heart, 
she loved to muse alone, and here she often came to weep, where 
no one would break in on the privacy of her grief. She now went 
forth from her once happy home, as Eve passed out of the Garden 
of Eden before the flaming sword of the angel, with this differ- 
ence, that Eve had indeed transgressed, while she was as innocent 
as the angel that drove Eve forth. Yes, her heart knew guile only 
by name. Her foot had never even trod the threshold of the tem- 
ple of shame. 

Gentle reader, if you be a lady, on whose fair fame the en- 
venomed breath of slander has never breathed, pause for a mo- 
ment and reflect. Think how superlatively wretched that sweet 
girl must have been, thus stricken down by evil tongues, when at 



236 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

the same moment she was as innocent as the sinless child! How 
apt are we to read or to hear of the sorrows of others, and to pass 
over the matter with a light remark, when if we could but realize 
the agony of the heart that has been rent without cause, we would 
sympathize in the deepest degree. Gentle lady reader, identify 
yourself with her forlorn and unfortunate situation — imagine your- 
self happy, as you no doubt are — fancy that you are wooed and 
won by a noble-hearted lover, who would spurn the idea of blight- 
ing the rose-bud of beauty's loveliness — then fancy that, at the 
moment, when the landscape of life is bursting in brilliance and 
beauty before you, and you are looking forward to a life of wedded 
bliss, the deadly blow comes; that the dagger of defamation is 
levelled at your heart, and that all the bright landscapes of love 
and happiness withers and fades before you. Fancy, in less figu- 
rative language, that in an unexpected moment the hopes and 
happiness of your heart, which never dreamed of wrong, are 
blasted by the unrelenting tongue of slander — fancy to yourself 
that those who once courted your society, now shun you as a 
thing of pollution, when at the same time, you know that your 
reputation in the sight of heaven is unspotted — fancy that your 
name, in every circle of society which you once adorned, has be- 
come a by-word and a reproach — Oh! fancy that you, as innocent 
as an angel, are looked upon as a fallen one driven from the 
blooming bowers of Paradise! Then, and then only, can you in 
any degree realize the unutterable woe that hung like a cloud over 
the grave of Mary's happiness. Language is too mean, too poor, 
to portray the anguish that preyed upon the soul of that virtuous 
and once happy girl. She was as sensitive as that plant which 
recoils from the slightest touch, and the words I write, you can 
imagine, for you could not express, any more than myself, the al- 
most inconceivable misery that pure and gentle girl endured under 
the consciousness that she was charged with a dereliction from 
the path of virtue, when she was conscious in her own mind that 
she was innocent, even in thought. 

My dear reader, pardon me, while I make another digression. 
The man who would deliberately slander so sweet a girl as Mary 
Mandeville, is a villain — a villain of the darkest dye. Is there, 
can there be a man so base, so dead to all the dictates of honor, 
as to breathe suspicion upon the character of lovely woman, — as 
to trail as did the serpent his venom over the the cradle of inno- 
cence in Eden, and, demon like, desecrate the holy temple of 
love in the heart ? If there is such a man, who would knowingly 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 237 

destroy the peace of mind and the reputation of a virtuous and 
happy lady, I know of no punishment severe enough for liim. 
PJuto's dominions vi^ould not be too gloomy for such a wretch. 
And why? Because he had far better plunge a dagger to her 
heart, and consign her to the solemn silence of the tomb, than to 
steal from her the precious gem, her honor, robbed of which she 
sinks from the glory of an earthly angel to a degree of degradation 
far below the meanest of the human race. Oh! I can never for- 
give that man who, for the accomplishment of the ruin of a politi- 
cal rival, would destroy an unoffending woman. It is in the nature 
of woman, when her heart is swayed by the deep devotion of love, 
to sacrifice every thing to the happiness of him she loves. I know 
such to be the generous nature of woman. I never appealed to her 
in vain, whether it was for her love, her sympathy or assistance. 
How base then must he be who would betray the confiding heart of 
that gentle creature who, in the fullness of her regard, would sac- 
rifice her very life to render him happy! I consider such slander 
the worst of crimes — and why? It is worse than murder, be- 
cause both body and soul are slaughtered. To ruin the hopes and 
happiness of her who loves, is downright murder of the mind, and 
then the victim of perfidy pines and perishes soon or late, while a 
pang is left in the heart of her friends. Oh! it is crime as black 
as night — crime of the darkest, deepest dye, that nothing can 
palliate, nothing atone for! 

But alas! poor Mary was suffering all the pangs and penalties 
of such an act of villainy, without any of the guilt. She was en- 
during the scoffs and the scorn of the world, without any con- 
sciousness of having merited it. She was rudely thrown from the 
circle of society which she had adorned, and was spurned by those 
who had eagerly sought her friendship, when, at the same time, 
she was as pure, as lovely and as confiding, as she had ever been. 
Is it any wonder, then, that she wandered into the wilds of soli- 
tude and shed the unavailing tears of regret? Is it any wonder 
that her heart, the home of the most exalted love and every ten- 
der emotion, should be breaking in despair? Oh! tell me, you 
who are young and lovely, whose hearts now throb with the vo- 
luptuous luxuries of love, is it any wonder that the beautiful Mary 
Mandeville should be pining away in hopeless agony, beneath 
unrelenting persecution? 

And Mary was indeed pining away. Gradually the roses, one by 
one, faded on her cheek, until she seemed like some lost spirit, as 
she glided along the street. But in her tears, if possible, she was 



238 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



more lovely than she had ever been. Beauty in tears has a charm 
which all the sunny smiles of joy can never give. The sight of 
the weeping Mary won the hearts of men, who never would have 
loved her under happier auspices. They pitied first, and pity 
always unlocks the heart to love. Were I a lady, and had I the 
desire to win the heart of the man on whom I had set my heart, 
I would wish to be in grief that he might witness my tears; for I 
have more than once witnessed the irresistible power of beauty in 
tears. Hard, indeed, must be the heart of that man, who can 
witness such a scene unmoved — who can coldly mark her grief 
and not love her. 

Henry had loved Mary devotedly before this blight of scandal 
had fallen upon her fair fame; but now, when he marked her pale 
cheek and her eye suffused with tears, his pity blended with his 
love, and the flame on the altar of his heart was increased. He 
wooed her by every means in his power, from the subject of her 
grief, but he wooed in vain. So great was the sensibility of her 
soul, that she could not believe the world would look over, or par- 
don the stab which had been given to her fair fame. 

Some time after Mary had left the store, Mr. Whitefield heard 
of the great distress under which she was laboring, and he called .. 
to see her in the vain hope that he could reason away the effects 
of slander. Vain hope indeed! He might as well have attempted 
to move the solid mountain from its base, as to have undertaken 
to have healed that wound which the dagger of slander had in- 
flicted in her heart. 

When Mr. Whitefield, her ever steadfast friend, entered, she was 
reclining on a couch ; in one hand she held a book, from which 
she had averted her eyes, in the act of contemplation ; her hair, 
though neglected, still hung in beautiful tresses around the other 
hand and arm, which supported a head as lovely as that of Hebe; 
yes, no less beautiful than that of Venus. She was dressed in a 
loose white robe, beneath the hem of which one of the most beau- 
tiful little feet in the world was protruded, which, of itself, was 
enough to captivate a less sensitive heart than my own. 

Oh! if there is any thing in beauty that has a silent and irresis- 
tible power, it is the unintentional exhibition of a sweet little foot, 
encased in a slipper as delicate as itself. Then, in the language 
of Moore, the fabulist, 

"The very sjlioe ha« poUL-r tu wound." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 239 

So deeply was the mind of Mary engaged in contemplation, 
that she did not notice her friend and benefactor when he entered, 
and it was not until he called her by name, in that brotherly tone 
to which she had been accustomed, that she awoke to a conscious- 
ness of his presence. Stretching forth her beautiful white hand, 
she said, "Ah! Mr. Whitefield you have come to look upon the 
wreck of human happiness — you have come to look upon one who 
might have been one of the happiest of our race, and whom God 
constituted to be happy, but who by the ungenerous tongue of 
slander, is made one of the most wretched." 

"Say not so, Mary," replied Mr. Whitefield, assuming a levity 
he did not feel, "there are many happy days in store for you." 

" No, never, never," exclaimed the unhappy girl, at the same 
time bursting into tears, "I can never be happy again." 

" Mary, you do wrong to give way to a mere tale of defamation." 

" Indeed, sir, I cannot help it. The fortune-teller told me true 
— my heart is breaking, Mr. Whitefield, but I shall ever remember 
your kindness with gratitude, though evil tongues have linked my 
destiny with yours." 

" Yes, Mary, I regret it on your account, and could I find the 
villain whose mean tongue first uttered the base imputation, I 
would drag it from his mouth and nail it on the highest wall. I 
have sought him, diligently sought him, but I have not yet found 
the man who dared to avow it." 

" I forgive him, oh! my best friend, I forgive him," said the poor 
girl, as the tears streamed afresh from her eyes. " Yes, I forgive 
him with all my heart, though I shall not long remain to be the 
scoff and scorn of that world that he has incensed against me. 
No, no; I feel it here," and the lovely, persecuted girl laid her 
hand upon her heart, that was indeed breaking in despair. 

Mr. Whitefield gazed upon her for a moment, as she sat with 
her beautiful eyes upraised to heaven, from which the large round 
tears were rolling down her cheeks. So touching was her ap- 
pearance, that he could bear it no longer; his fortitude gave way, 
and turning from her, he buried his face in his hands and wept. 
The thought that he had unintentionally been the cause of the 
ruin of so sweet, so lovely a girl, touched him to the soul, and 
without uttering another word, he arose and left the room. His 
anguish was little less than hers, for he saw that she was doomed, 
in the hey-day of her beauty, to be a bride — not the bride of him 
she loved — but the bride of death. Yes, he saw that the roses 
were perishing on her cheek, for the evidence was as plain to his 



240 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

eyes as to those of Henry. He felt a deep interest in her fate. 
And where is the honorable man, whose heart is alive to the finer 
sensibilities of our nature, who would not? It was a source to 
him of the keenest pain, that the slanderer should have made him 
the immediate instrument of her ruin; and not less did it give him 
pain, that no persuasion, no entreaties could prevail upon her to 
look upon it as a mere idle tale of scandal, which would pass away 
with the political excitement. She still contended that the effect 
was the same, be it true or false; the world would believe it; her 
name would be the scoff and scorn of the thoughtless, and that 
even the grave, to which she was hastening, could not shield her 
from the hyena-like fangs of the slanderer. And poor, persecuted, 
though still pure and lovely Mary, was right. Without the shadow 
of a cause on her part, she was, in the first instance, slandered; 
and without any cause on her part, the slander pursued her, link- 
ing her name with infamy. 

Oh! how cautious should we be in speaking of the reputation 
of another, for, to quote that passage of Shakspeare, of which I 
before quoted a part, and I quote from memory — 

"Who steals my purse steals trash, 
'Tis something, nothing — 'twas mine, 'tis his, 
And has been slave to thousands, — 
But he who filches from me my good name, 
Robs me of that which enriches not him, 
But makes me poor indeed." 

Too often has the delicate fame of beautiful woman been blasted 
by a simple and innocent act which has been seen by a prying 
eye. A stolen kiss, or a glance of the eye, has been tortured into 
guilt by the evil mind, and a confidential meeting between two 
hearts, that were pledged in the sight of Heaven, has been noticed 
and retailed to the eternal ruin of her who dreamed not of wrong. 
The fame of lovely woman should not be assailed on trivial grounds, 
for if it once receive a stain, it can never be washed away. 

It was thus with Mary Mandeville. A few circumstances, 
trifling in themselves, and which involved no guilt, were the sole 
ground on which the tale was founded, which was now sapping 
the very fountain of her life 

Mary had long had a desire to go to the West, to see her rela- 
tives, but the pride of woman still clung to her heart when all else 
had flown; she resolved not to go until she had proven to the 
world, by the lapse of time, that the story of her disgrace was 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 241 

false — ay, false as the tales which the serpent whispered into the 
ear of Eve. Months passed away, and instead of being soothed 
by the oblivion that time generally brings, she became more and 
more unhappy. Every day left its traces in the increased paleness 
of that beautiful cheek, where so recently had been seen the bloom 
of beauty. Every day when Henry came, and found that it was 
vain to attempt to woo her back to hope and happiness, he sat and 
silently gazed into her face, so pale, so interesting, and ever and 
anon a tear stole down his face. 

Mary now spent most of her time in her room, bowing in devo- 
tion before her God. She knew that she was fading away, that 
her heart was breaking, that she would ere long be the bride of 
death, and she prayed to God to forgive her enemies; to pardon 
those who had planted daggers in her heart, and had doomed her 
to go down to the grave in the very morning of her bloom and 
beauty. The heart of that fond, affectionate girl, felt no animosity 
against a living creature; and oh! how cruel it was to blight so 
lovely, so gentle a being! 

" Mary," said Henry, one day when he found her alone, " the 
day appointed for our marriage is past, are you resolved still to 
deny me, and to make me as wretched as yourself?" 

"Oh! Henry," exclaimed the still beautiful girl, turning her 
exquisite eyes upwards, and clasping her dear little hands, " for- 
give me — forgive me. I know, Henry, that you believe me inno- 
cent, but the stain of imputed guilt is on me, and I cannot consent 
to go to your arms anything less than Caesar wished his wife — not 
only virtuous, but above suspicion. I cannot consent to be the 
wife of a man whom the world would taunt with having lavished 
his affections on a fallen woman. It is some consolation to know, 
that my heart is innocent of even a thought of error, but that very 
consciousness renders the sting of reproach more severe! for were 
I guilty, that guilt would destroy sensibility — yes, I should not 
feel insult so keenly. Dear Henry, I speak to you thus plainly, 
because I feel that lam fast fading away. I shall not remain long 
with you — my heart is breaking — I cannot consent to give you 
the persecuted wreck of my beauty — Oh! no, no, no. — Forgive 
me, Henry, for I still love you as dearly as ever." 

" Mary, I do forgive you; but are you to perish beneath the in- 
fliction of an idle tale of slander?" 

"Oh! Henry, for heaven's sake, say no more!" exclaimed the 
now frantic girl. " It wjU drive me to madness, Henry — yes, yes, 
I shall go mad, mad, niad!" 
31 



242 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

As she spoke these words, she leaped from the side of Henry, 
who had been holding her hand in his — her unbound hair fell in 
masses over her symmetrical shoulders — her eye was burning with 
the wild intensity of grief, and as she stood in the middle of the 
room with her hands clasped and her eyes raised to heaven, she 
looked like some inspired being. Ophelia or Desdemona, in their 
woe-worn moments, were not more fascinating than was Mary, 
though she was totally unconscious that a single charm lingered 
around her. Though long continued agony had rendered her 
pale — though the joyous brightness that once laughed in her eye 
was gone — and though that mirthfulness, which belongs to a 
young girl, no longer broke from her luxurious lips in tones sweet 
as those that are breathed by the ^Eoiian harp, yet there were 
charms around her even in her despair, which were irresistibly 
touching. 

Poor Mary; she obstinately refused to fulfil her vow of marriage, 
though in her happy days, when she made it, she eagerly looked 
forward to her union with Henry as the height of her happiness. 
Alas! that her brilliant and beautiful dream should have been so 
soon destroyed ! It was a bright and transient dream of happiness 
from which she awoke, and wept to find hersdlf undone. 

Time rolled on, and still Mary was fading away like a beautiful 
flower nipt by untimely frost. Time had proven one part, by 
doing the work of death. Her gentle heart, so full of tenderness, 
was silently and slowly breaking, and she felt that it could not 
continue to beat much longer. Often, when alone, did she place 
her pretty little hand on her heart, and while she felt its tumul- 
tuous throbbings, she would shake her beautiful head, and say in 
a low mellow tone, "Beat on little world of love and woe, the 
struggle will soon be over. You cannot ache with anguish much 
longer, and oh! that will be a happy day for me, when your pul- 
sations will cease, and these eyes which were once admired, will 
be closed forever; I shall sleep quietly in the grave." 

As Mary had long intended to go to the West to see her rela- 
tions, her friends persuaded her to depart, under the belief and 
hope that a change of scene would relieve her mind and recall her 
back to life. But it was a vain hope. No power on earth could 
revivify that delicate spirit, which like a bird that has received a 
shot in the heart, falls, and can never take wing again. 

Mary went to the West, and in travelling, passed through many 
sublime scenes, that under other circumstances, would have en- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 243 

raptured her mind; but now the poor, unhappy girl was like the 
captive Indian, who looked upon the stately tree, but could see 
no beauty in it because he was unhappy. Her friends in the West 
sought every means to soothe her mind, and to soften the circum* 
stances which had been the cause of her woe, but they sought in 
vain. There is a bound to all human suffering-^a barrier, which 
if not passed, the wounded heart may recover from its pangs; but 
when that barrier is passed, hopeless, irremediable woe is the con- 
sequence. The shadows of despair had long since gathered on 
Mary's pale brow, and when she sat at the window, gazing upon 
the morning sun, as he drove up his fiery steeds over the golden 
woodlands of the West, and turned her ear to listen to the hol- 
low, mournful winds of November, she looked like some unearthly 
being — like some unhappy angel that had strayed from the bowers 
of Paradise. 

"Oh! I am sick, sick to my very heart," she said one day, as 
she laid down the book she had been reading. "I must go to my 
bed, and I feel that I shall never leave it until this heart shall know 
its griefs no more." 

Her cousin Julia wept, as she assisted the unhappy sufferer to 
her bed. 

"Oh! Julia, my heart indeed is breaking," said Mary, in a 
melancholy tone of voice. "I feel it is breaking as sensibly as I 
felt the joy of love when Henry wooed and won it. Weep not 
for me, dear cousin Julia, I fear not death, and I shall soon be 
where the cruel voice of traduction cannot molest me. The voice 
of slander cannot break in on the dull cold ear of death, and in 
the solitary grave I shall weep no more. Oh! Julia, how much I 
have suffered! If he, or they, who invented the slander, could 
know what I have endured, I know they would pity me. My 
heart aches — Oh! how it aches!" and the fair, dying girl threw 
her head back on the pillow, and breathed one of those deep 
heartfelt sighs which come from the very depths of the soul. 

Mary had ceased to weep. The fountain of her tears was dried 
up. Ah! yes, she had passed that acme of suffering, beyond 
which tears are never known. As she lay in her loose white robe 
upon the bed, she looked like some beautiful being that was 
dressed in the habiliments of death, and just ready to be placed 
in that cradle of mortality, in which we convey our friends to the 
city of the dead. Her friends crowded around her, young and 
old; and with all the eloquence they could command, essayed to 



244 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

win her back to hope, to happiness, and life ; but their efforts as 
before, were all in vain. 

"Dear friends, whom I love dearly," said the dying girl, as she 
clung round the neck of her aunt, who had stooped to kiss her, 
"I am the bride of death — I feel that I can never survive, and oh! 
I look forward to the grave as my only solace, for from the lenity 
of this world I can expect no sympathy." 

Finding that their tears and persuasions were of no avail, her 
friends ceased to importune her, and turned all their kind atten- 
tions to smooth her pathway to the tomb, for so rapidly did she 
now decline, that they saw there was no hope. Her cousin Julia 
was a lovely girl, who possessed a warm heart, and she hung 
around her bed like a ministering angel. 

Oh! how I love that devotion of angel woman at the bed-side 
of suffering humanity! If there is a scene on earth on which 
angels look with pleasure, it is to see woman at the bed-side, 
soothing and softening human woe. 

The fame of Mary's beauty, amiability and suffering, together 
with the romance which a hundred stories had gathered around 
her, called many a curious eye to look upon the lovely victim of 
persecution, and to drop a tear over her misfortunes. 

Mr. Whitefield felt so deep an interest in the fate of the poor, 
persecuted girl, that when he learned that she was so fast fading 
away, he resolved, if possible, to have her restored to her parental 
home. He had hitherto imagined that the stories respecting her 
dangerous situation were untrue or exaggerated; but no sooner 
did he learn that the unfortunate Mary was about to bid adieu to 
the world forever, than he resolved to have her brought back to 
the bosom of her family. And oh! how sweet is that word to 
those who know the joys of home — home, home, sweet home! 
None know the joys of that word but those who are dying in a 
far distant land. 

Mr. Whitefield determined, if possible, in spite of slanderous 
imputations, to have the dying girl brought back to her once 
happy home. To accomplish this object, he appealed to the sym- 
pathy of Mr. Simpson, who possessed a heart that, in the language 
of Pope, could 

"Feel for others' woes." 

Mr. Simpson was a man whose soul, like that of Mr. Whitefield, 
did not quail beneath the bitter and uncalled for sarcasm of the 
world. He had just returned to town, and the moment that Mr. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 245 

Whitefield related to him what he already knew respecting the ill- 
fated victim of persecution, he, like a true knight in the days of 
chivalry, resolved to espouse the cause of injured woman — re- 
solved to hazard his life in protecting and assisting a fair lady, the 
bloom of whose beauty had been blasted by perfidious tongues. 
And where is the man who would not thus boldly step forth in 
defence of trampled innocence and beauty ? Does he breathe upon 
this land of intelligence and freedom? If there be such an one, 
let him fly to the wilds of Africa, and hug the hungry tiger to 
his heart, for such a man is unworthy of the affections of lovely 
woman. 

As I said before, Mr. Simpson resolved instanter to espouse the 
cause of the fair and fading Mary. With Mr. Whitefield, he 
looked upon her as one who had been cruelly and causelessly 
abused, for well he knew that the sole cause of her despair was 
the persecution of that party spirit which had raged, and which 
to reach Mr. Whitefield^ had unfeelingly stabbed her to the heart. 
It is singular how pertinacious human nature is in pursuing that 
for which the cause has died away. Even after the excitement of 
the election had passed, the envenomed tongue of slander could 
not be still. No, it was not suffered to rest. Why is it that hu- 
man nature pursues with deadly animosity the object in whose 
breast it has once fixed its horrid pangs? Is it that man is like 
the ferocious beast — that when he once gets a taste of blood, he 
must have the victim? 

It seemed so in this instance, for, though every proof had been 
given that the dying Mary was innocent, the detractors of her 
fame pursued her still. This Mr. Simpson knew, and one even- 
ing, in the presence of a lady, declared before heaven that he 
would risk his life in her defence, though he claimed no ties of 
kindred with her, any more than subsisted between her and the 
man (Mr. Whitefield) who had been the innocent cause of all her 
woes. 

It happened, the evening before Mr. Simpson started for the 
West, that he called upon a lady who had often charmed him with 
her conversational powers. 

"Well, Mr. Simpson," said Elmira St. Clair, "I am told that 
you are going to the West as a cavalier. In other words," she 
observed, laughing, "I heard that you were to become the knight 
of the fallen " 

"Fallen!" exclaimed Mr. Simpson, starting from his seat — 
"Oh! Miss Elmira, how can you be so cruel as to use such Ian- 



246 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

guage? How can you persecute one of your sex in so unkind a 
manner? Take back those words." 

"Take them back," said she, with a supercilious look — "what 
do you mean?" 

"I mean that you are cruel to one of the loveliest of her sex — 
you know her, poor, persecuted Mary." 

This appeal to the feelings of Elmira, touched her heart, and 
she hesitated to reply. 

"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Simpson, in continuation, "how is it 
that you will defend a man who does wrong, and yet you refuse 
all sympathy to a sister who is only charged with that which every 
one cries aloud is false? Why is it? 

Elmira covered her face with her hands, and Mr. Simpson saw 
evidence of considerable emotion. 

"Well, well," said Mr. Simpson, "I see that you repent of the 
language you have used, and I hope you will never again trifle 
with feelings which are breaking another's heart." 

Elmira burst into tears, and Mr. Simpson, a graceful and gen- 
tlemanly man, arose, took her hand, pressed it kindly, and left the 
room. 

The next day he took his departure to the West, to bear back 
the fading flower, which so many wished to see restored to her 
native garden, to be revived again. 

When Mr. Simpson left the lovely Elmira, she began to reflect 
on what he had said — she began to reflect on the language she 
had used toward one of her sex, in whom she had never seen any 
guile. She thought of the agonies that must rend the heart of 
Mary, because she placed herself in the situation of the forlorn 
persecuted girl, and fancied to herself how she would feel under 
similar circumstances. The heart of woman is easily touched, 
and the more she thought of it the more was her sympathy ex- 
cited, until her heart began to flutter with that indescribable feel- 
ing which precedes a burst of sorrow. The tide of emotion came 
rolling over her bosom, and the beautiful Elmira, who was not 
wanting in generous feeling, burst into tears, and fell upon the 
sofa, sobbing as if her heart would break. 

Thus it often is; we speak lightly of the woes of others, and 
even make a breaking heart the subject of our merriment, when, 
if we were to reflect one moment, and place ourselves in the situ- 
ation of this afflicted one, our hearts would melt in sympathy and 
sorrow. Ah ! yes, were we to identify ourselves with the griefs of 
those whom we make our sport, we should sigh instead of smile, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 247 

and drop a tear of regret instead of sporting in levity over the 
woes that are preying like a vampire on the bosom of another. 

Elmira bent her beautiful head back over the sofa, while her 
clustering curls hung like grapes of gold around her swan-like 
neck, and she looked like the representation of queen Dido, at the 
moment when she, through unfortunate love, stabbed herself to 
the heart. 

Oh! there is something irresistibly touching in beauty, when 
thus thrown into a paroxysm of grief. The words of Mr. Simpson 
were continually ringing in her ears, and the more she thought of 
them, the more she repented of having trifled with the sorrows of 
the poor, heart broken Mary. 

But the -epentance of the fair and exquisitely beautiful Elmira 
could be of no avail in relieving the heart of poor, dying Mary. 
She little knew that that sweet girl was so rapidly going down to 
the silent city of the dead, or her regret for her levity would have 
been much greater. 

Mr. Simpson, as observed before, departed for the West, as the 
knights in the days of chivalry, went forth in defence of some 
ladye fayre. But though he had started on a generous, a noble 
expedition, his travel was not unmarked by adventure. He had 
scarcely proceeded a hundred miles, ere his elegant charger took 
fright, ran, and despite his being a good rider, threw him, and he 
fell head foremost against an oak. Covered with blood, he lay 
unnoticed for some time, until a shepherd happened to pass, and, 
seeing him, supposed him to be dead. While he was gazing upon 
him, fearful to approach, his two sisters came into the woodland, 
and drew near. Though naturally timid, as we always find women 
in those circumstances of life which do not call forth their bravery, 
when anything happens calculated to call forth her spirit — when 
humanity calls upon her, she drops that spirit of the lamb, and as- 
sumes that of the lion. Not as man does — not in the angry pas- 
sions, but she rises in fortitude, and boldly dares everything for 
the relief of the suffering. Heavenly woman, what will she not 
dare when sorrow, sickness and misfortune call upon her? 

The two rustic maids had the young Simpson conveyed, in an 
insensible condition, to their humble home in the woods. There, 
like ministering angels, they watched over him with assiduous care 
until he recovered; for whenever woman beholds man in misfor- 
tune, particularly where she sees in him the trace of elegance, 
refinement and mind, though he may have no claim to beauty, slie 
will never desert him. She will watch by his bedside with an 



248 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

unblinking eye, when all others sleep, and pay him that devotion 
which man, with all his boasted fortitude, can never pay even to 
woman. Hence comes the witchery of woman. When nothing 
calls for the exercise of her fortitude, she will start at the sighing 
of the blast, or the hum of an insect; but when she sees a fellow- 
being in distress, she becomes strong and fearless ; or when she sees 
two men in strife, in whom her affections are wrapped up, she will 
fearlessly throw herself between them, even when the glittering 
dagger gleams in her gaze, and even though its point may drink 
the precious blood of her own heart. 

Lelia and Lucy, the two country maidens, I have alluded to, 
watched over the suffering young man, until he was perfectly re- 
covered, and never was there a more grateful man than Mr. 
Simpson. With many thanks he gathered the rustic family around 
him, and blessed them for the kindness that they had bestowed, 
and as they followed him, mounted his horse, and bade adieu to a 
humble place, but where humble hearts had cared for his distress. 
Oh I generous, generous woman! 

As Mr. Simpson rode along the lonely way through the forest, 
he could not but think of the sweet sympathies of woman, even 
in the wilderness, in whose solitudes we little expect to find those 
exhibitions of tenderness, which are found in the polished circles 
of city life. Their kindness, however, was the more sweet to 
him, because it was unexpected, and his heart beat with the 
warmest gratitude, as he rode along the devious way. Indeed he 
could not forget the melting and melancholy eye of the little, light, 
and airy Lucy, who had flitted around him like some sylph of the 
woods. Though rustic and uneducated, he beheld in her charms, 
which surpassed those of the city belle. And what most touched 
the soul of Mr. Simpson was, that just ere he departed, while 
standing alone in the passage of the humble dwelling, the sweet 
little unsophistical Lucy, after gazing at him with indescribable 
tenderness, came forward, fondly placing her arms around his 
neck, and with that voluptuous impulse of soul which none but 
woman knows, pressed her blooming lips to his, in one fond, long 
and last embrace. She had watched over him in his suffering 
moments, and during the weary watchings of the night, had 
learned to love him. Poor girl, she had only learned to love at 
the moment of parting. She loved him with all her soul, and 
thoughtless of all propriety, she clung to him as the first object 
on which her heart's riches had been bestowed. Ah ! how severe 
must it have been to that young girl's heart, to see the only object 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 249 

she had loved, bidding her farewell forever! No doubt she is at 
this moment mourning over the recollection of his departure, for 
the whole story I am relating, but recently transpired. 

Mr. Simpson met with but few incidents worthy of notice, ere 
he arrived at the beautiful mansion which held the fair and fading 
Mary. Oh! who can imagine the feelings, the mutual feelings, 
with which Mary and Mr. Simpson again gazed upon each other. 
When Mr. Simpson entered the room, and he entered alone, the 
fair, though fading Mary, was lying on a couch. The book which 
she had been reading, had fallen from her hand; her unbound hair 
was scattered over her beautiful bosom, that was white as snow, 
and equally as pure; she was gazing, as she often did, upon the 
sun, as he veiled his glories behind the distant woodlands, and 
gently sunk into the bosom of the sea. "Ah!" she would say, 
when thus gazing upon the setting sun, " I too, will soon go down 
in peace to the grave, and like thee, bright sun, I shall rise again — 
I shall rise, never to set again." 

So seraphic did she appear in the sight of Mr. Simpson, that, 
for a moment he stood transfixed. He gazed upon her as some 
superior being, that had strayed away from the bowers of Paradise. 
Though she was no longer the blooming and beautiful Mary that 
he had known in the days of her hopes and happiness, he thought 
her still more lovely, if possible, thus clad in the weeds of woe. 
There was an expression on her countenance which he could not 
describe, yet that expression to him had a charm, which all the 
roses of beauty could not have lent to her lovely cheek. So ab- 
sorbed in thought was she, that she saw him not, and he stood 
gazing upon her fixed eye, so beautiful in its gaze, and upon her 
pale cheek, from which all the flowers had faded but the lily. 

"Ah!" he exclaimed, mentally, "what a pity that so sweet, so 
lovely a girl, should be sacrificed without the shadow of a cause — 
that one so gentle, so faultless, should be thus made the victim of 
unwonted persecution." While he was thus reflecting, Mary 
recovered from her reverie; her melting and melancholy eye met 
that of her old acquaintance. 

Mr. Simpson at any time would have rushed to her assistance, 
but now, when he knewi'she was afflicted, who can describe the 
feelings with which he flew to grasp her sweet little hand? As 
soon as Mary turned her melancholy gaze towards him, he ad- 
vanced and took her hand. 

" Oh! Mary," said he, " I am sorry to see you look so sad," and, 
as he spoke, he could not refrain from turning away and shedding 
32 



260 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

a tear over the sorrowful countenance of one whom he had known 
in the hey-day of her bloom and beauty. 

" Do not weep for me, my friend," she cried, " T fear not death, 
and indeed, I long for the quietude of the grave, where no evil 
report can harm me more." 

She spoke these words with such a touching tone, with such a 
pathos, that her cousin Julia fell upon her bosom, and burst into 
tears. Every one in the room caught the infection, and, by sym- 
pathy, in a little while all were weeping. During this touching 
scene, little Kate, a girl about six years old, clambered up on the 
bed, and throwing her dear little arms round Mary's neck, said — 

" Don't cry, dear cousin Mary, little Kate will love you, if no- 
body else will; don't cry, cousin Mary, little Kate will love you." 

This act of the sweet little creature only added fuel to the flame, 
and a burst of sorrow was heard all over the room. The dying 
Mary clasped the affectionate little creature to her bosom, and 
kissed her again and again, and little did Kate think that her cousin 
Mary would never kiss her again. She never did; though circum- 
stances alone prevented it, for Mary lived some days afterwards. 

When Mr. Simpson came to her bedside, the only regret she 
expressed was, that she was to die away from her parents, and 
away from Henry, whom she loved dearly, and that he would think 
she had proved recreant to her vow, or had treated him with that 
coldness which is foreign to the nature of woman. 

"Oh! my friend," she exclaimed, " when I am dead and laid in 
my silent grave, and you return to that once happy home, where 
I was so happy, tell poor Henry, who has loved me so much, that 
I did not forget him in the hour of death. Tell him that I loved 
him to the last — that the last prayer that lingered on my lips was 
breathed for him; and oh! tell him that the poor heart-broken 
Mary, if possible, will love him when this heart," and she laid her 
hand upon her heart, " shall have ceased to beat forever." 

That night the unhappy Mary complained of pain in the left 
breast, in the region of the heart, and the next day her cheek, 
which had hitherto been pale as death, now bloomed with the 
hectic of consumption. Yes, the consuming fire had lit up the 
cheek which, in happier days, was adorned with roses of beauty. 
Oh! who could look upon the dear girl, thus dying with a broken 
heart, and not weep her early — her untimely fall ? 

" Dear cousin Julia," she would say, as she fixed her fading eye 
upon her, "I can never weep any more. Oh! be careful that 
your good name is never assailed as mine has wantonly been, for 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 251 

you see before you the ruin that slander has made. I was inno- 
cent, I was happy, and should now have been the wife of my dear 
Henry, had not some ungenerous tongue breathed pollution on 
my good name. Oh ! Julia, dear cousin Julia, it is hard to die so 
young, and to die under a charge of which I am totally innocent! 
But, perhaps, when I am dead, and laid in my grave, the heart 
that has wronged me may relent, and shed as bitter tears of sorrow 
as those which have so often poured down my poor, pale, fading 
cheek. But, dear Julia, I can never, never weep any more! The 
tide of life is ebbing fast, and this heart, which has at last broken, 
will soon cease to beat. Oh! Julia, kiss me once more, ere the 
shadows of death have hidden you from my eyes forever! I feel 
that I am dying, and I am happy thus to die in the conscious 
triumph of virtue. 

"Would to God that he who inflicted all my misery could now 
behold all the ruin he has made, and see how fearlessly a virtuous 
heart can die. Oh! Henry, my beloved, my betrothed, my heart 
bleeds for you — yes, the bleeding heart is verified — she was right, 
the funeral procession will soon follow." The unhappy Mary, 
overcome by the intensity of her feelings, stretched her fair form 
upon the bed, covered her face with her hands, and while all in 
the room were drowned in tears of heart-felt sorrow, remained 
for some time in perfect silence. 

For some time Mary went to her couch and reclined for a while, 
occasionally through the day, but the hour soon came when she 
was to lie down and rise no more; so rapidly was the anguish at 
her heart sapping the very fountain of life. Mr. Simpson found 
that it would be vain for him to attempt to convey the lovely fading 
flower to her native garden, though anxious hearts were beating 
to see her restored to their sight. 

Poor unhappy Mary, the gloomy cloud of sorrow had so long 
hung over her that she had ceased to smile. Yet even now, in 
her dying moments, there was a power in her charms which was 
scarcely surpassed when she was in the brilliant bloom of her 
beauty. Hectic fever gave a flush to her cheek, which increased 
in intensity every day, and there was an unearthly light in her 
charming eye that seemed to pierce the beholder's soul. Mr. 
Simpson gazed upon her with feelings which not even a TuUy's 
tongue could describe. It was a beautiful morning when he 
entered the drawing-room, and beheld Mary sitting, as usual, at 
the window, gazing upon the rising sun and the autumnal woods. 



252 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Ah!" said he, as he took her sweet little hand, "how happy 
I would be could I only convey you to those friends who this very 
hour, no doubt, are thinking of you, and longing for your return." 

" My dear, dear friend," returned the dying Mary, " I feel the 
evidence here," and she laid her hand upon her heart which was 
beating with tumultuous emotion, " that I shall never see another 
sun set." 

Mr. Simpson started from his chair, on which he had sunk by 
the side of Mary, and walked the floor rapidly. The thought 
startled him that death should be so loudly knocking at a heart, in 
which so many of the glorious virtues of woman were enshrined. 

" Oh!" thought he, " how can I behold so lovely a creature in 
the grasp of death ? I could stand before my fellow-man with an 
instrument of death in his hand, in defence of the unhappy girl, 
but I have not the fortitude to see her die." 

Thus did he muse to himself, and at one moment was just ready 
to order his horse and depart. But he did not, for he was destined 
to behold the beautiful Mary in the last expiring pangs of dissolv- 
ing nature. 

During the day, Mary grew much worse — her hand was ever 
pressed upon her heart, and she declared with a calm countenance, 
that what had been said of broken hearts was true; for that she 
was as conscious of the pangs she felt when her own broke, as 
she had ever been of a pain in the head or breast. Many persons 
suppose that a broken heart is a mere poetical fiction, but I have 
been assured by more than one, that it is a reality, literally speaking. 

About ten of the clock, poor Mary went with a steady step to 
her couch, and calmly lying down, said to all who were gazing 
on her with piteous eyes, " Farewell, dear friends, the sufferings 
of poor persecuted Mary are almost over. I shall never rise from 
this couch again, and the next sun, when he sets, will gild the 
grave of poor heart-broken, persecuted Mary." 

At these words, uttered in such a touching tone, every one in 
the room shed tears. Julia sobbed aloud, and the dear little Kate, 
whose heart was not deficient in feeling, ran weeping to the arms 
of the dying Mary. They clung in one long, fond embrace. The 
physicians perceived, when they entered, that there was no hope. 
When the gentle Julia pressed them to tell her there was longer 
life for Mary, they shook their heads with that ominous meaning 
which at once puts an end to all fond anticipations. 

From hour to hour Mary declined, till the energies of life's last 
lingering hold were nearly dissolved. She stretched herself in 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 253 

her loose white robe upon the couch, and told them that she 
would never rise again. Mr. Simpson was so affected that he 
could not speak a word, and he sat and gazed upon her with in- 
expressible sorrow. 

" Mr. Simpson," said Mary, " death has put his cold hand upon 
me, and as I feel that ere many hours I shall sleep in his embrace, 
I will tell you all that I wish you to convey to my dear parents 
and friends. Tell them, Mr. Simpson, that I am innocent — Oh! 
yes, assure them that, with my dying breath, I declared my inno- 
cence. You know not my feelings, Mr. Simpson, and no doubt 
you think I will recover — but no, the shaft is in my heart, that 
has made a wound never to be healed. Oh! tell Henry, poor 
Henry, that I loved him in death, and would have fulfilled my vow 
of marriage, had not the breath of defamation fallen on my fair 
fame. I could not, no, I could not give my fading form to his 
arms, after the imputation of shame had fallen upon it. But tell 
him that Mary is gone to the grave with an unstained heart, and 
htat her heart beat for him to the last moment of her existence. 
Bear to my parents and friends the assurance that the heart-broken 
Mary feared not death, but died as all innocent hearts should die, 
with perfect calmness. 

"Tell those who have struck the cruel blow, that they have 
murdered poor Mary — but tell them, again and again, that with 
her dying breath she forgave them — and oh ! tell them that she 
died triumphant in virtue." 

As she uttered these words, she took the hand of Julia, and by 
her assistance, attempted to embrace her, but the effort was in 
vain. Putting her hand upon her heart, as she had so often done, 
she said in a mournful tone — "It is almost over, dear Julia. When 
yon sun shall have set, poor heart-broken Mary will be pale and 
lifeless before you. And Mr. Simpson, when you thus look upon 
me, wrapped in the white shroud, remember what the heart- 
broken Mary has told you, that she never erred : that her virtue 
was truly triumphant in death. Yes, Mr. Simpson, give a dying 
girl your hand, for I know you are a man of honor, and you will 
feel for one whose bosom has ever been unstained." 

Mr. Simpson was so overcome by his feelings that he knew not 
what to say. Mary kept her dying eyes steadfastly fixed upon 
him, and said — 

"I cannot, no, I cannot say all that I wish to say to you." 

Her friends hastily gathered around her, and the dying girl, now 
gasping for breath, pressed every hand as it was presented to her, 



254 WRiTiifes OF the milford bard. 

and said in an almost inaudible voice, "Farewell forever. I am 
not afraid of death, for I die with a pure and virtuous heart. 
Farewell, dear, absent Henry, forev — " 

Death stopped the last syllable upon her tongue. She gently 
fell back into the arms of Julia, and on her bosom died. Thus 
perished the beautiful, the lovely Mary Mandeville — perished in 
the early bloom of womanhood, a victim to the slander of some 
merciless tongue, the victim of a broken heart. Alas! the fortune- 
teller's story had proven true, and the funeral procession was soon 
to close the sad prophecy. Never, perhaps, did human tears flow 
so freely as when the sweet girl, the broken hearted Mary, was 
encased in her coffin, and was conveyed to the silent city of the 
dead. Many a heart melted in sympathy, that had stood by the 
graves of others unmoved; for when they heard the melancholy 
sound of the clods falling upon her coffin, the most desolate and 
mournful sound that ever falls upon the human ear, they thought 
of the beautiful being there deposited forever. They thought 
of her former gaiety and happiness — of her sweet smile — her 
heaven-lighted eye — of her blighted peace — of her blasted hopes — 
of her broken heart — and how she perished in the bright morning 
of her existence, when her young soul was full of love and hope, 
and they wept over the grave of the poor unhappy Mary. But, 
sweet girl, she sleeps in peace. That dazzling eye, which could 
once awaken feeling by a s>ingle glance, is closed — those lips, 
which had often lighted up with a smile, and on which bloomed 
the sweet roses of youth, and from which fell the bewitching 
accents of love, were sealed by the icy finger of death — that heart, 
that gentle little innocent heart that so often throbbed with the 
tenderest emotions of our nature, had ceased to pulsate forever. 

Oh ! gentle reader, if you have ever stood by the grave of de- 
parted beauty, you can realize the feelings of Mr. Simpson, when 
he heard the clods falling upon the coffin of poor, dear, sweet, 
innocent Mary. But the grave — the grave covers all human woes, 
and all ambition. The sun was just setting when the grave of the 
unhappy Mary was filled up, and the mourning concourse turned 
to leave the hallowed spot. Ah! how sad it is to think that she, 
so lovely, and so well calculated to adorn society, was but a short 
time ago one of the most charming of her sex! Now, where is 
Mary. Pale in death, she lies in the grave, and the setting sun 
casts his last rays upon the lovely spot where she rests. 

Oh! you who have sighed, or shed a tear over the sad story of 
Mary's wrongs and ruin, remember that a single word of defa- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 255 

matioii may make a wound that can never be healed. Remem- 
ber that words lightly spoken may blast reputation and cause 
a heart to break that never conceived a wrong. May my readers 
remember the poor heart-broken Mary, who died triumphant in 
virtue, and hug to their hearts that jewel without which woman is 
nothing. 

Note. — The author of the foul slander that cost a young and lovely woman 
her life, and her friends the happiness of her society, made the confession upon 
his death-bed, and died in all the horrors of remorse. 



lanhr. 



What is Slander ? 
'Tis an assassin at the midnight hour 
Urged on by Envy, that with footstep soft, 
Steals on the slumber of sweet innocence. 
And with the dark drawn dagger of the mind, 
Drinks deep the ci-imson current of the heart. 
It is a worm that crawls on beauty's cheek, 
Like the vile viper in a vale of flowei's. 
And riots in ambrosial blossoms there. 
It is a coward in a coat of mail. 
That wages war against the brave and wise, 
And hke the long lean lizard that will mar 
The lion's sleep, it wounds the noblest breast. 
Oft have I seen this demon of the soul. 
This murderer of sleep, with visage smooth. 
And countenance serene as heaven's own sky; 
But storms were raving in the world of thought: 
Oft have I seen a smile upon its brow; 
But like the lightning from a stormy cloud. 
It shocked the soul and disappeared in darkness. 
Oft have I seen it weep at tales of woe. 
And sigh as 'twere the heart would break with anguish; 
But like the drop that drips from Java's tree. 
And the fell blast that sweeps Arabian sands, 
It withered every floweret of the vale. 
I saw it tread upon a lily fair, 
A maid of whom the world could say no harm; 
And when she sunk beneath the mortal wound, 
It broke into the sacred sepulchre. 
And dragged its victim from the hallowed grave 



256 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

For public eyes to gaze on. It hath wept, 
That from the earth its victim passed away 
Ere it had taken vengeance on his virtues. 
Yea, I have seen this cursed child of Envy 
Breathe mildew on the sacred fame of him 
Who once had been his country's benefactor; 
And on the sepulchre of his repose. 
Bedewed with many a tributary tear, 
Dance in the moonlight of a summer's sky. 
With savage satisfaction. 



WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF A VERY INTELLIGENT LADY OF BALTIMORE. 

I SAW the gay and graceful youth, 

At beauty's feet in homage bow; 
And lingering on his lip, in truth, 

I heard him breathe alTection's vow. 
He wooed and won her heart and hand, 

For him she left her happy home; 
Forsaking friends and native land. 

With him she loved afar to roam. 

Oh ! if there is one pang, one dart. 

That hath in it all woes combined; 
One dagger thro' the human heart. 

That murders the exalted mind, 
'Tis felt by woman in those hours. 

When she beholds her hopes decay; 
When sweet affection's cherished flowers. 

Are thrown, like worthless weeds, away. 

The fair Ophelia loved, and fain 

Would trust his violated vow; 
Still to her heart would hug the chain. 

Ungrateful man hath broken now; 
She little thought the hand she pressed 

In wedlock, would her sorrow prove; 
Would aim an arrow at her breast. 

And blast her brilliant dream of love. 

The man who bids the bosom bleed. 

Which he had vowed his bliss should share; 

Who triumphs in the dreadful deed. 
And dooms a fond heart to despair; 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BiVRD. 257 

Is a vile coward who, on earth, 

Should hug the hungry tiger's form; 
He knows not aught of woman's worth, 

His breast no blissful feelings warm. 

He should be doomed to wander where 

Earth's angel, woman, never trod; 
And be in caves or caverns there, 

The scoff of man and scorn of God; 
He ne'er should gaze on eyes of bliss, 

As beautiful as those above; 
Should taste not witching woman's kiss, 

Nor hear the language of her love. 

Far in a foreign land she sleeps. 

Far, far from friends, across the wave; 
No kindred eye now o'er her weeps, 

'JVIid strangers she hath found a grave. 
Like flowers that now are fading there. 

And fragrance to the air impart; 
She pined and perished in despair, 

By him who wooed and won her heart. 



Written for the Album of Miss E. M. of East Marlborough, Chester County, Pa. 

When Memory, with a magic spell. 

Her mirror bright displays; 
How oft we seem, again, to dwell, 

In scenes of other days ! 
The spectres of the past arise, 

With long forgotten hours; 
And fancy feeds her eager eyes, 

On fair, unfading flowers. 

Again in childhood's home appears, 

Call'd up by Memory, 
Companions of our earher years. 

And joys of infancy; 
Ev'n at our side, our parents, there, 

Once more we gaze upon; 
And bow the knee, to hear the pray'r 

Of those, lor.g dead and gone. 
33 



258 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Beiieath the shade of childhood's tree, 

We mingle in the plays, 
And feel the joys, of childish glee, 

We felt in other days; 
We ramble thro' the wild- wood shade, 

Or butterflies pursue; 
As oft we roved, rejoiced, and played, 

When life and hope were new. 

And oh ! when Memory works her spell. 

We shed the tender tear; 
When bidding to some friend farewell, 

Or bending o'er the bier 
Of some dear one, as once we did. 

In years long passed away; 
O'er one, the grave has long since hid 

In coldness and in clay. 

Oh ! Memory ! what charms are thine, 

Clciirvoyant, to disclose 
The happy scenes of love divine. 

And courtship's joys and woes ! 
Within thy magic mirror, we 

Survey the dark-eyed fair. 
Who, in our youthful years of glee. 

Our hearts and hopes did share. 

But, lady, it is sad to break 

Fond Memory's magic glass, 
And, from the dream of youth, to wake 

To age and woe, alas ! 
But time will pass, and when thine eye 

These friendly lines shall see; 
Let Memory dwell on days gone by. 

And sometimes think of me. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 259 



t 35atth of 35ranin]minr 



September 11, 1777. 

To sing the beauteous morn that broke, 
When valor and when vengeance woke, 
When England's Lion rent his chains, 
And thunder shook the sanguine plains; 
When Freedom's Eagle, thro' the sky. 
Dashed lightnings from her lurid eye; 
When Washington, the son of war. 
Drove, thro' a sea of blood, his car, 

The glorious task be mine. 
The sun arose, in lucid light. 
High o'er the boding brow of night, 
The light blue clouds like ringlets rolled, 
The sky seemed but a sea of gold, 
The sunbeams danced upon the deep. 
Like smiles upon an infant's sleep. 
And orange rays, upon the peak. 
Like blushes o'er a maiden's cheek; 
And where the glittering dew appears, 
Like beauty smiling thro' her tears. 
And softened sounds, o'er rocks expire, 
Like sighs that sweep the jEolian lyre; 
But ah ! that sun his hght did throw. 
O'er many a weeping widow's woe, 
And those soft sounds were but the tale, 
Of many a weltering warrior's wail. 

At bloody Brandywine. 
Hark ! hark ! the trump of war awakes. 
And vengeance from her vigil breaks; 
The dreadful cry of carnage sounds; 
It seems that hell lets loose her hounds, 

To crush Columbia's band. 
Pulaski saw the signal rise. 
He heard the thunder pierce the skies. 
And snatched his sword and flashed his eyes. 

And waved his daring hand; 
His war-horse, headlong down the hill. 
Like lightning, sought the sound so shrill; 
He saw the dreadful foe advance. 
Two streaming standards met his glance, — 
Two columns moved with awful tread. 
That seemed the armies of the dead, 
Kynphausen and CornwaUis led, 

Tow'rd mighty Maxwell's line. 



260 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD, 

Pulaski tilted round and round, 

And held the leaping charger's bound, 

To view once more that groaning ground, 

Of beauteous Brandywine. 
Loud thunders thro' the concave rise, 
A volley rattles round the skies. 
Louder, still louder, round and round. 
And peal on peal the rocks resound; 
From rank to rank, resounds the clash, 
And brilliant blades in vengeance flash; 
Brave Maxwell stands the stormy strife, 
Nor dreads he now his dauntless life; 
Full on Knyphausen's hostile band. 
He fell, with bayonet, blade and brand, 
Again, again, the foemen fled — 
Again they sought the bloody bed. 
The banners blazed, the battle burned, 
To right, to left, the victory turned; 
'Till breathing flames of bursting fire, 
Brave Maxwell bade his men retire, 

And straightway cross the stream. 
A horseman dashing down the hill. 
Came, like the wind with trumpet shrill, 
And bade Pulaski's legion wheel — 

"Twas like a fitful dream. 
Fly to the ford— fly— fly! 
Each moment did the horseman cry; 
Great Washington there waits your hand, 
To try Knyphausen's hostile band; 
Fly ! fly, and wield the conquering blade, 
Nor let CornwalUs lend him aid; 
One moment lost, a hundred years 
Can ne'er repay or bring arrears. 
Pulaski heard the dreadful shock. 
His war-horse thundered down the rock. 
And at his side, one moment seen, 
Were all the ranks of gallant Greene, 
And o'er the distant hill afar. 
Brave Sullivan came to join the war, 
But lo ! CornwalUs had retired. 
And hope in every heart expired; 
Greene was recalled to feel his fate. 
And Sullivan doomed in doubt to wait. 

The clarion of command. 
Pulaski held his horse that strained. 
Like tiger tied, or lion chained. 
But quick he saw and soon explained, 

The fiery blazing brand. 
The foe had passed, prepared for fight, 
And fallen with fury on the right: 
Greene saw that Sullivan's fate was sealed. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 261 

His cheek was pale — he paused — he wheeled 

And bounding down the bank like light, 

He dashed thro' dust to join the fight; 

But Sullivan's soldiers fled the plain, 

Nor dared to face that foe again: 

Stained with his blood he waved his hand. 

And, shouting, begged them but to stand. 

Pulaski reined his charger round, 

Wheeled to the right, and gained his ground; 

One moment stood on stirrups high. 

To view the van and hear the cry; 

The wind swept round — the clouds of smoke. 

Revealed them, and in distance broke — 

Charge, wheel and charge, he said and flew — 

A field of bayonets faced his view; 

He led the way, his dauntless ranks, 

With fire and steel, cut down the flanks, 

And to the column's centre dashed. 

Where bayonets blazed and lances flashed; 

And on he rode, thro' walls of fire, 

That closed around with roaring ire; 

Reeking with blood, he gasped for breath, 

And wheeled in one wide blaze of death. 

And dealt his blade, amid the yell. 

Till horseman down on horseman fell, 

The foe gave way — they fled amain. 

But concentrated soon again. 

Once more ! Pulaski cried, once more, 

And dashed headlong amid the gore; 

Like whirlwinds quick his chargers wheeled, 

And many a hostile horseman reeled; 

High o'er their heads the hero rode. 

Till his bright blade was drunk with blood, 

And slaughter sick with gore; 
The sun went down, veiled in a cloud, 
Like many a hero in his shroud. 

That slept along the shore. 
Meanwhile brave Greene approaching near, 
Brought up with wrath the raging rear; 
One rush of fire the hero stood, 
'Twas followed by one gush of blood. 
With planted blades the British kneeled. 
No more they rose — in death they reeled; 
Pulaski's war-horse, warrior proof. 
Nailed many a heart with his high hoof; 
Pulaski plunged — a warrior wheeled, 
His blade struck full — Pulaski reeled: 
His bearskin flew, and quick displayed, 

The wound the warrior's weapon made. ^^t 

He tilted round — a bolder blow. 
In slaughter stretched the savage foe; 



262 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

It cleft his skull, and blood and brain 
Came spouting forth upon the plain: 
Off to the right again he wheeled, 
And saw brave Weedon take the field; 
Virginia's vengeance was displayed, ,. 
With many a flashing flame and blade; 
Rank sunk on rank, in death to writhe, 
Like wheat before the cradler's scythe; 
And Pennsylvania's patriot band. 
That never knew a coward's hand. 
Supported Weedon 's daring ire. 
That seemed but one exhaustless fire; 
By La Fayette the band was led. 
In freedom's cause the hero bled, 
His arm was wounded, and behind, 
His scarf was streaming in the wind: 
But still he waved his bleeding hand. 
And urged to death the dauntless band, 
And on they rushed, with raving ire. 
Through the red sea of flaming fire; 
It seemed to him that saw the sight. 
As heaven and eai-th had met in fight. 
Hot lava streamed across the vale. 
Like shooting star or comet's tail. 
On every wind was heard the wail. 

Of pain and agony; 
Ascending ghosts arose on high. 
Like snow-white birds that seek the sky, 
And hovered o'er to hear the cry. 

And shout of victory. 
Retreat ! retreat ! the clarion cried, 
Retreat, great Washington replied; 
One fault has turned the fate of war, 
But valor has not left her car; 
The knell of vengeance yet shall toll. 
Along these hills the sound shall roll, 
And golden harps, with heavenly lay, 
Shall sing the valor of this day. 

While Freedom's flag shall wave. 
With Vandyke, Clayton and M'Lane, 
And Bayard, statesmen of acclaim. 
Shall live, Delaware, the fame 

Of all thy warriors brave. 



C|e Crmmp|s of yearning. 




T is with peculiar pleasure that I take up the 
[pen, just relinquished, to add another trophy to 
the modern march of mind — to add another tri- 
bute to the triumphs of learning and liberty. 
>The heart of the philanthropist leaps with plea- 
'sure at the prospect, that religion, hand in hand 
with learning, is about to illuminate the minds 
of more than three hundred thousand children, 
scattered in the vales and villages of the great 
valley of the Mississippi. Most glorious under- 
taking! The cynic may smile at the idea, and 
the infidel laugh to scorn the noble intention ; 
but there is, perhaps, many a germ of genius in 
that valley, destined, by the aid of a Sunday 
school, to rise to the pinnacle of human glory. 
Go search the records of renown. It is not to 
colleges we are to look alone for great and good men. The 
Saviour of mankind chose his disciples from the fishing boat; 
and many of the most illustrious characters that ever illuminated 
the world, rose by the aid of the bright and brilliant agency 
we are contemplating. Dr. Herschel, who, with the eye of a 
philosopher, searched out and added another world to the solar 
system, was a fifer boy in the army; Ferguson, the very son of 
science, was a poor weaver, and learned to read by hearing his 
father teach an elder brother. Search the record of our revolu- 
tion, and the names of Sherman, of Franklin, and many others, 
may be adduced as evidences of the truth of the position. 

Upon the culture of the intellect depends the glory of nations 
and the stability of empires. When Homer sung and Hesiod 
wrote, Greece was ascending that pinnacle from whence the flood 
of her glory gushed and still gleams upon the minds of men. 
When Seneca laid down the grand principle of morality, and 



264 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Cicero shook the forum with the thunders of his eloquence, then 
Rome, the city of the Caesars, flourished, and Virgil sung her the 
glory of the globe. But when the red sons of rapine rushed from 
the hills, when the Goths and vile Vandals beat like a cataract at 
the gates of Italy, she fell like the Colossus at Rhodes, and be- 
came the "Niobe of nations," recognized alone in the renown of 
her relics, and the grandeur of her ruins. The destiny, as well as 
durability, of a nation depends upon the culture of the mind- 
Rome held, even in the dark ages, and still holds, a respectable 
standing among the nations for her science; but Greece, unhappy 
Greece, the very last gleam of her glory was extinguished in the 
blaze of Byzantium. The last star of her learning that had en- 
lightened the world, went down in the long night of barbarism, 
and the last remnant of her renown was annihilated in the ravages 
of the unrelenting and merciless Moslem. The tyrant Turk left 
her nothing by which she might recognize her former greatness 
and triumphs, but the tombs of her saints and sages, and the page 
of her imperishable fame. But the luminary of liberty hath again 
risen on her shores, and the light of learning and religion again 
gladdens her bosom — she may shine again among the noblest of 
nations. 

That knowledge is power, may be read in every page of history, 
and every achievement of man. The rise and ruin of empires, 
the flourishing and fall of rulers, are pregnant with the truth of 
this aphorism. We are informed that the single arm of Archi- 
medes was enabled by his knowledge to defend Syracuse against 
the legions of Rome, and to defy the wrath of the world. To him 
alone the launch of a ship was but pastime, and for his amusement 
he set fire to whole navies. The press, that mighty engine of in- 
telligence, and the compass, the polar star of commerce and curi- 
osity, are the off'springs of human knowledge and invention. By 
the aid of steam we are enabled to resist the elements, and mat- 
ter, even on the land, is transj)orted over space with the velocity 
of mind. Printing, the great pioneer of knowledge, has dissemi- 
nated intelligence in a tenfold ratio. All the glory of ancient 
times, all the oracles of Athens, of Ephesus, and the world, may 
not be compared to this in the greatness of its design and the 
brilliance of its benefits. 

Nor less is the power of knowledge in other respects. Why 
does gigantic Russia, the terror of the Turks, tremble at the armies 
of England? Why, when the cloud of battle shrouds the heavens 
and darkens the orb of day, does the savage fly from the sons of 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD, 265 

civilization? Ay, why did the Tartar hordes and Arab armies of 
Africa sink beneath the valor of the fair-cheeked children of 
France? And why did the sun-burnt Gothics of the Ganges yield 
when the British battle-cry was heard on the banks of the golden 
river? On the contrary, why was the Russian successful in tri- 
umphing over the Turk, and planting his standard on the walls of 
Adrianople, when a thousand sabres started and streamed with 
the blood of the bravest heroes? It was the result of the superi- 
ority of mind over matter; of intelligence over ignorance and bar- 
barity. This same superiority of mind enabled one man to rule 
Sparta, and lay down a code of laws for her future government. 
That illustrious man was Lycurgus, the best benefactor of his 
country. 

In the middle ages, when printing was undiscovered, and books 
scarce, and of inappreciable value; when learning was preserved 
in the convent, the closet, and the castle; when man was the ab- 
solute master of his fellow-man, and the chains of tyranny rattled 
on the arms of the slave, the light and power of knowledge were 
made more evident by the great circle of darkness which sur- 
rounded them. In those days of romance, the infant was cradled 
amid the clash of arms and the tumult of battle: to him valor was 
virtue, and a knowledge of war was wisdom. Then came the Cru- 
sades, and glory consisted in grappling with the Mahommedan for 
the sepulchre of the Saviour. Then the aspiring youth knew no 
piety but patriotism, no science but arms, and his education taught 
him that to conquer on the field of fight was the very essence of 
philosophy. About this era arose the orders of knighthood, among 
which the Knights Templar were distinguished. Learning became 
hereditary among them, and never was the might of mind more 
terribly triumphant. The great Charles of Germany was their pa- 
tron, and, headed by the venerable Valette, they shook the throne 
of the incensed Solyman, and bade defiance to the tyrants of 
Turkey. For six or seven hundred years they struck terror to the 
infidels, and hung out their banner in the cause of Christianity. 
During that long period of despotism and decay, they were the aegis 
of Europe, and a shield to the Christian world, against which the 
spear of oppression rattled in vain. In the eleventh century, 
when the cloud of war darkened the East, and a volcano broke 
from the mountains of Imaus; when the Saracen crescent was 
waved by Saladin on the walls of the holy city; then was seen a 
tempest even more terrible rolling up from the West. Then the 
dark Iberian, the gay Gaul, and the gentle German, were seen bat' 
34 



266 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

tling amid the burning sands of Syria; and then the Albanian and 
the Arab unsheathed their glittering swords for the glorious com- 
bat. Then, too, did the victorious sword of the Templar gleam 
and glitter in the sunbeam, and mighty was its blow. Jerusalem 
may bear witness. Aye, go and meditate amid her melancholy 
ruins; go survey the tall temples of Askelon laid low in the dust, 
and muse amid the scenes of Samaria, celebrated in the annals of 
that proud and imperious age. The sublimity of those solitudes 
only exist now in the ruins of their former renown, and the recol- 
lection of departed grandeur. The flowery fields and pavilions of 
Palestine, where mirth and music once resounded, war hath deso- 
lated; and Calvary, the covert of the lamb, hath become the lair 
of the lion. 

Nor is learning more powerful and beneficial to the state than 
pure religion, and her handmaid, morality. But, in the language 
of the eloquent Phillips. "I would have her pure, unpensioned, 
unstipendiary; I would have her, in a word, like the bow of the 
firmament: her summit should be the sky; her boundaries the 
horizon; but the only color that adorned her should be caught 
from the tear of earth, as it exhaled, and glowed, and glittered in 
the sunbeams of the heavens." Yes, and I would have her bright 
as the crystal current from the rock, and sincere as the smile of 
infant innocence when it slumbers on the bosom that bore it. I 
would have it great, but not gloomy; magnificent, but not merce- 
nary ; and powerful, but not ambitious. 

It is not pure religion — that blissful harbinger of hope and dove 
of heaven, that aims at dominion, and to unite the congress to 
the conference, and the crosier to the crown. No! it is political 
hypocrisy that hath no hope; it is restless, ruthless bigotry that 
knows no blush. Pure religion never sanctioned the murdering 
of the martyrs, or introduced the fagot and the fire. No! she 
never sighed for a union of the church and state. 

But it is strange that the effort to educate the children of the 
West should beget fears for the safety of the state. As well might 
we assert that to sever the chains of a slave would excite venge- 
ance in his soul, and enlist him an enemy against his liberator. 
Does learning shed no light on the human intellect? Does glad- 
ness in the benefited beget no gratitude to the benefactor? To 
decide to the contrary, is inconsistent with reason. Enlighten 
the minds of those children, and they will see the dangers they 
are to avoid; they will be so many bulwarks to the state in the 
day of darkness and danger. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 267 

But who are the men who advocate the measures of the Sunday 
School Union, which proposes to send light into the wilderness 
of the West? Who are those who are in favor of cherishing the 
germs of genius now scattered over the prairies of the great valley 
of the Mississippi? They are some of the most illustrious states- 
men and heroes our state or republic has produced; some of the 
most eloquent and eminent divines enrolled in the cause of Chris- 
tianity. They are men of various sects and societies, men whose 
only ambition is to fix the permanency of our institutions on the 
firm foundation of education and liberty. They are men of piety 
and patriotism; they are philosophers and philanthropists. They 
are men who look with delight upon the temple of our devotion 
as it kisses the clouds and dips its head in heaven; but they will 
never agree that the flag of our freedom shall move upon its walls. 
The cause of education is the cause of Christianity and of our 
country. The present measure is advocated by the great and the 
good, by the wise and the wealthy. Aye, a voice from (he tombs 
of Oriental saints and sages, a voice from the gory graves of the 
revolution, a voice from the sepulchres of the heroes of our 
country, and a voice from the vault of Vernon, come stealing on 
the Sabbath silence, approbating the grand and glorious enterprise. 
The very simplicity of the undertaking makes it sublime. How 
cheering the idea, that more than three hundred thousand children 
shall be made moral, be taught to read the most beautiful of books, 
and discharged with a Testament for the paltry sum of what, as an 
eminent gentleman very justly observed, we should pay for a pin, 
a feather, or a flower! The retrenchment of a single ribband, the 
sacrifice of a single ticket to the theatre or ball-room, might raise 
up and give the impulse in the West to another Washington in 
war, or another Wirt in eloquence; to another Jefferson in the 
presidential chair, or to another Jay in the councils of his country. 
There is talent among the children of those pioneers who subdued 
the wild wilderness, and peopled those sublime solitudes of the 
West, where no human foot had trod and no eye penetrated, save 
those of the unhappy children of the forest, the aborigines of the 
country. Man is naturally a religious creature. Had the light of 
the Gospel never illuminated his mind, and the knowledge of his 
own destiny and dignity hereafter never dawned upon his under- 
standing, still reason would have taught him a belief in the exist- 
ence of a superior Being. He would have admired his wisdom in 
every leaf and every flower that adorns the earth; like the Hindoo, 
he would have seen him in the setting sun, and like our own 



268 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

Indians, he would have worshipped the Great Spirit, as he passed 
in his chariot on the storm of night. But, happily for us, the 
Gospel has gone forth with glad tidings. The story of the Saviour's 
sufferings and sorrows, of his crucifixion on Calvary, was one of 
the first lessons imprinted upon our minds in the hours of infancy. 
As first impressions last through life, it is our duty to extend and 
imprint this necessary knowledge on the minds of the rising gen- 
eration. The Gospel has been sent to the heathen children of 
Hindostan and Japan; to the Arab and the South Sea islander; 
and the time is rapidly arriving when the ^thiop and the Arab 
will own the same faith with the Englishman and American; when 
the Hottentot and Tartar will extend the hand of good fellowship 
to the Protestant and the Catholic. But in those glorious triumphs 
abroad, the darkness which enshrouds the intellect of our own 
country should not be forgotten. Infidelity is abroad, and the 
novelty of her tenets, and the force of her blandishments, are 
bowing the minds of men. She hath erected her altar, and she 
hath her oracles, her priests and her divinities. The doctrines of 
Plato and Pythagoras have burst from the billow of oblivion which 
had buried them beneath the rubbish of three thousand years, and 
are again taught by the Pagan priest of modern times. 

But nay, there are those who are up and doing. There are 
those whose lives have been almost spent in disseminating the 
light of religion and learning to the sons of darkness. Most high 
shall be their reward in heaven. The pride of ancestry, as an 
incentive to emulation, may be just; to read over a long list of 
illustrious predecessors may be laudable; but when man looks 
back to a long existence devoted to the glory of God and the 
benefit of his country, then it is that life becomes truly illustrious, 
and the grave glorious. Such are some of those who advocate 
the measure which I have endeavored to delineate. Such are 
those who would enlighten the intellect and moralize the mind of 
one of the fairest and most flourishing sections of our country. 
When the foam of the last wave of time shall whiten their heads, 
and the blast of the last trump shall echo in their ears, the recol- 
lection of the past shall light up the gloom of the grave, and 
soothe and soften the pangs of dissolution. And when they shall 
have long slumbered in the city of the silent; when every trace of 
the unhappy Indian shall have been buried in oblivion; when 
other cities shall rise in the great valley of the Mississippi, and 
this republic shall rival and surpass the ancient glories of Greece 
and Rome; then shall the memory of their labors still live, and 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 269 

their monuments be inscribed with characters of imperishable fame. 
Ages hence, when some youth shall point to a modern Athens, to 
another Rome on the rivers of the West, and ask of what manner 
of people the fallen race of the forest were, and concerning those 
who enlightened the minds that achieved the glorious foundations 
of greatness; then will some venerable sire, some Plato, Cicero, 
or Seneca, point with pride to the catalogue of renowned names, 
names of those now living who disseminated the Gospel and the 
light of learning in the West. 

Mind constitutes the majesty of man; virtue his true nobility. 
The tide of improvement, which is now flowing, like another Ni- 
agara, through the land, is destined to roll on downward to the 
latest posterity; and it will bear to them on its bosom our virtues, 
our vices, our glory or our shame, or whatever else we may trans- 
mit as an inheritance. It, then, in a great measure depends upon 
the present, whether the moth of immorality and the vampyre of 
luxury shall prove the overthrow of the republic; or knowledge 
and virtue, like pillars, shall support her against the whirlwinds of 
war, ambition, corruption, and the remorseless tooth of time. Let 
no frown fall upon the hopes of the philanthropist in the cause of 
the Sunday school. If its power individually is humble, so is the 
labor of the silkworm; but the united product is immense; it be- 
comes the wealth of a whole empire. We despise the single in- 
sect crushed wantonly in our path; but united, they have depopu- 
lated cities, destroyed fertile fields, and struck terror to nations, 
becoming more formidable than CcBsar or Scipio, than Hannibal 
or Alexander. The united effort of Sunday schools may carry 
intelligence and virtue to millions of minds; nor does the accu- 
mulation of influence cease with their labors, for millions yet un- 
born may reap the tenfold harvest. Active education is ever on 
the increase; like money, its interest becomes compound, dou- 
bles, and in the course of years becomes a vast national treasury. 
Give your children fortunes without education, and at least half 
the number will go down to the tomb of oblivion, perhaps to ruin. 
Give them education, and they will accumulate fortunes; they will 
be a fortune themselves to their country. It is an inheritance 
worth more than gold, for it buys true honor; they can neither 
spend nor lose it; and through life it proves a friend, in death a 
delicious consolation. Give your children education, and no ty- 
rant will triumph over your liberties. Give your children educa- 
tion, and the silver-shod horse of the despot will never trample 
on the ruins of the fabric of your freedom. 



270 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



Love and Reason one day to escape from a shower, 

Crept under a rose that bloom 'd in the glade; 
Finn friends they had been from life's earhest hour, 
And were partners in all the sweet conquests they made; 
Lots of hearts, 
Pierced with darts. 
They had gained in their cause; 

But reason was stupid, 
And little Dan Cupid, 
He didn't believe was dead, shot as he was. 

Reason thought he could make Love an arrow much brighter, 

And beautiful, too, that would reach ev'ry heart; 
'Twas of gold, but Dan Cupid's own arrow was lighter, 
And, feather'd, he aim'd it with much greater art: 
But in vain 
Did Love deign 
To contend for his dart; 

For Reason was bitter. 
He said that the glitter 
Of the gold one, would blind, while 'twas bound to the heart. 

Dan Cupid, to please his old friend, used the arrow. 

And shot a young girl in an old man's embrace; 
He found that it went thro' the bone to the marrow, 
But seldom or never went to the right place; 
And each wound. 
Too, he found, 
Left a very bad sore; 

Causing grief and contention, 
Aching hearts, not to mention 
Broomsticks, broken heads, and divoixes a score. 

Love's own arrow always the right person wounded, 

And went to the heart, waking peace, hope and joy; 
While the gold one of Reason too often rebounded. 
And fell at the feet of the beautiful boy; 
And the heart 
That his dart 
Wounded, mortified too; 

Tho' the splendor of riches. 
That often bewitches. 
Attended it, wretchedness kept in its view. 

Love and Reason beheld two fair sylphs from the city. 
The one was quite rich, and the other was poor; 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 271 

One was weak as the other was wise and was witty, 
And they quarrelled which way Love should shoot, as before; 
"We'U divide," 
Reason cried, 
"Shoot the rich with my dart;" 

But Love, with his eyes on. 

Shot the beautiful wise one, 

And his arrow went straight to her love-stricken heart. 

Love then said to Reason, " we part and forever. 

You take the dollars, and I'll take the sense;" 
And since thus they parted; they never, no never 
Have agreed, or been friends under any pretence. 
If Reason, 
In season. 
With Beauty should stray; 

Love soon takes the warning. 
And bright as the morning. 
Spreads his wings to the wind and flies gaily away. 



I WATCHED a bubble broad and bright, 

That on the streamlet played. 
And a gay world of life and light, ' 
In painted pictures met my sight, 
Around its disk arrayed. 

Green vales and valleys caught my view, 

And fertile fields of flowers; 
The sky was paved with azure-blue, 
And blooming blossoms dipt in dew, 

Hung o'er the beauteous bowers. 

And fancy's fairest forms were there. 

Of blushing beauty bright; 
They seemed to wander free from care, 
Upon this little world of air, 

Nor feared nor clouds nor night. 

But ah ! the quick returning tide 
Swept o'er the watery world; 

And all its gay and gilded pride, 

Sunk, as I hastily espied 
The wave that o'er it curled. 



272 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

And thus does hope, man's fondest prayer, 

Beam on his beating breast; 
It pictures scenes of pleasure fair, 
Then comes the wave of dark despair. 
And as it sweeps his bosom bare. 
The bubble rolls to rest. 



-»■ — » m 



(0 \^ni are €tmB. 



THERE are tears by beauty shed. 

Upon the lonely grave; 
They fall for friends and kindred dead, 
And for the worthy brave: 

On sorrow's breast they melt in care. 
The fell musicians of desjDair. 

O there are tears that brightly flow, 

When parted friends embrace; 
They bid the beating bosom glow. 
Remembrance to retrace: 

And they are called the gems of joy. 
Pure and unmixed, without alloy. 

there are tears of wrath and wrong, 

That gush in boiling streams; 
They nerve the arm of vengeance strong. 
And haunt the maniac's dream: 

They are the streams of i-age and care, 
Sacred to anger and despair. 

O there are tears in love's young eye. 

Bright as the dews of morn; 
And there are tears that none may dry — 
They chill the heart forlorn; 

Where disappointments coldly fall. 
They oft bedew the sable pall. 

And there are tears that burst the goal, 

Of nature's feeble eye; 
They purify the sinful soul. 
To take its flight on high; 
And they are tears of innocence. 
That spring from humble penitence. 



THE QUAKER MERCHANT, 



O R 



C|e (§mxms JJan |letoarh^. 




HAT, in the name of sense, has come over you V 
;;said Mr. Rivingston, one morning, to his friend 
[Freelingham, "what has possessed you to take 
into your house, that young graceless fellow, 
Grandison?" 

"What is thy objection to doing a good ac- 
tion?" asked the generous-hearted Quaker mer- 
chant of Wilmington. 

"A good action indeed!" exclaimed Rivings- 
ton with a sneer. " But, to be serious, my ob- 
jections are many. I am astonished at you, with 
a house full of children, to take into your family 
that wild fellow, to corrupt and contaminate — " 
"Stop, friend, "said Freelingham, "and I will 
put thy cavils at rest, by giving reasons for my 
conduct, that thee will not be able to upset, with 
all thy dogmas of economy and morality. In the first place we 
are commanded to do good to our fellow-creatures, to take the 
distressed stranger in, and " 



"He'll take you in," said Rivingston, interrupting him in turn. 
" You have a lovely daughter, just bursting into bloom and beauty, 
and nine other children, whose morals he will contaminate; and 
what advantage do you promise yourself?" 

"I look for no reward, but the consciousness of doing a good 
deed." 

"What do you call a good deed?" sneered Rivingston. "Is it 
to take a wild, dissipated fellow into your family to corrupt it, and 
place it in his power to be more dissipated? I would sooner kick 
him out of my house, than take him into it." 
35 



274 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Listen awhile, friend," said Freelingham, "thee is an English- 
man, and we are not nriore different in our national characteristics, 
than in our notions of right and wrong. The young man I have 
protected, it is true, is a stranger, and found himself in a strange 
place without a friend, and without a penny. It is a natural con- 
sequence generally, that if a man has not a penny, he has not a 
friend. I found him without a home, and in great distress, and 
that was enough to call forth the sympathies of any generous 
heart." 

"Aye," returned Rivingston with a sneer, "and you'll find the 
fable of the farmer and the serpent verified; when you have warmed 
and brought the serpent to life, he'll bile you." 

"Well, well, if he prove ungrateful, the sin will be his and not 
mine. He is a very well educated and intelligent young man; 
but here he comes, and he can answer for himself." 

"Yes," said young Grandison, as he entered. "I am ready to 
answer any enquiries that so generous a friend may ask." 

"We would like to know thy history," said Freelingham. 

"You shall have it, sir, though there are, or have been, but few 
incidents in my life. I was born in the state of Virginia, in what 
is called high life; that is, I was born in the lap of luxury, and 
reared in the cradle of wealth, no mean portion of which I fell 
heir to at the death of my parents, both of whom were carried off 
suddenly, by a fatal epidemic. With a large fortune, I was thrown 
upon the world at any early age, with no one to feel an interest 
in my moral welfare, no one to guide and direct my steps in this 
dangerous world, so full of snares for the young and inexperi- 
enced. At the early age of fifteen my guardian, who cared 
nothing about my morals, filled my pockets with money, and I 
was looked upon, and indeed I felt, as an independent gentleman. 
Fortune has thus been made a curse to thousands. I was reared 
to be what is termed a gentleman, that is, without a profession 
or occupation, for it was considered that I possessed fortune 
enough without descending to the drudgery of work, and bitterly 
have I had cause to repent it. My uncle, who was my guardian, 
was a man of loose habits, and the example which he set before 
me, proved my ruin. He was a nabob in the South, who was 
caressed, and whose society was courted by all the bloods of New 
Orleans, to which city he removed with me in my sixteenth year. 
He was so grand, so dignified, so fashionable, and so much hon- 
ored by the elite of New Orleans, that I learned to think that 
every thing he did was noble, and every habit he indulged in 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 275 

beautiful. To imitate him, who was so universally admired and 
courted, I considered the very acme of elegance and style. Oh! 
how many young men have thus been blasted by pernicious 
example ! 

At the splendid residence of my uncle I lived in great luxury 
and extravagance, after I left the University of Virginia, in which 
institution I had graduated with the highest honors. Among the 
gorgeous guests I learned how to kill time, by indulging in every 
species of dissipation. I had no idea of the real value of money 
or any kind of wealth, for my patrician hands had never been 
hardened by labor, and I had never earned a single dollar. Noth- 
ing but labor can give us a proper appreciation of the value of 
money, and the dissipation of my uncle and his grand array of 
guests, soon taught me to esteem money only as it afforded me 
the means of indulging in sensual gratifications. Gambling and 
drinking were universally prevalent, for the warning voice of 
temperance had not then been heard from the watch-tower of 
philanthropy, and with pernicious example on every side, it was 
not strange that I should become contaminated. Alas! without 
knowing the horrors in store for me, I lifted the golden goblet to 
my lips, and was ruined. The effects of stimulus at first were 
delightful, causing beautiful visions of imaginary bliss to pass 
through my mind, but I awoke to unutterable horrors. I slid in- 
sensibly into that vortex, in which so many of the best men have 
perished. I struggled to break the chain which bound me, but 
alas! I struggled in vain." 

"It is too late to weep now," unfeelingly observed Rivingston, 
who observed the young man to be overpowered by his feelings. 

"Nay, these are the blessed tears of repentance," remarked the 
good-hearted merchant. 

"I was thinking," resumed Grandison, "of all the misfortunes 
and miseries that sprung from the evil examples that surrounded 
me, and of the miserable habits I contracted. Many a bitter tear 
have I shed, when I have ineffectually striven to free myself from 
those fatal habits. Imitating my uncle and his associates, I lived 
extravagantly, and indulged in gambling and drinking to a ruinous 
extent. When I arrived at the age of manhood, and my fortune 
came into my hands, I gave way to extravagance in every form. 
I bought a splendid house in New Orleans, which became the 
centre of dissipation, thronged with the votaries of fashion and the 
devotees of the gaming-table." 

"How much fortune did you possess?" enquired Rivingston. 



276 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"My grandfather had made a princely fortune in New York, as 
a shipping merchant, which, through my father fell to me. It is 
almost incredible that I should so soon have wasted so much, the 
income of which, every year, was a handsome little fortune. But 
constant dropping of water, says the old proverb, will wear away 
stone; and constant extravagance will exhaust the largest estate. 
I became so passionately fond of the gaming table that I might 
have been said almost to have lived at it, and more than once have 
I gambled away thousands at one sitting. Being naturally gen- 
erous and liberal in my disposition, and, as I said before, having 
no idea of the value of money, I was applied to by every adven- 
turer who wished to borrow large sums, and I endorsed for many, 
in almost every instance of which I lost or had the money to pay. 
I found securityship a bad business, as thousands have and thou- 
sands will yet find it to be; but the pride of being called the friend 
of the needy, and of having it in my power to assist others, urged 
me on in the road to ruin. Those who sought my assistance, in 
the way of endorsing their paper or going security for them, flat- 
tered me as a great public benefactor, as a wonderful philanthro- 
pist, and I was weak enough, being always under the influence 
of ardent spirits, to become the tool of the designing, who saw the 
degree of gullibility under which I labored. But to hasten to a 
conclusion, for the subject is painful, I soon discovered that in 
various ways I was wasting my estate. Several failures occurred, 
by each of which I lost thousands, till at length I found I had but 
few thousands to lose. My property was seized to pay the liabil- 
ities of others, and as I saw myself going to ruin, a desperation 
came upon me, and I madly rushed on. Gladly would I have 
reformed my life, and retrieved my fallen fortunes, but it was too 
late. I was in the grasp of the demon intemperance." 

"What ensued?" enquired the merchant, deeply interested. 

"One morning," said Grandison, while tears were trickling 
down his face, "I stepped out of a gambling house, where I had 
gambled away my last dollar. A fire had occurred, but a kw days 
before, and burnt a row of my buildings; and as misfortunes never 
iome alone, a large firm had broken, aud left me minus about 
twenty thousand dollars. To come to the point at once, I found 
myself alone in the world, and a beggar, ibr my uncle, for some 
slight pretended offence, poverty was the real one, discarded rne, 
though he knew that his pernicious example had wrought my 
ruin. I found, by woful experience, that poverty was a great 
offence; that though it has been said to be no disgrace, that it 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 277 

was the worst of infamy ; that my nearest and dearest friends were 
altered in their manner towards me, or were my enemies; and 
that my nearest relatives threw my faults in my face, to cover their 
cupidity and want of feeling, in refusing to assist me. I have 
discovered that prosperity is harder to bear than adversity, and 
that an utter stranger will open his ear to the cry of distress, and 
his purse to the poverty of an individual, sooner than a relative, 
who is lavish in useless advice. Adversity is a good school of 
wisdom. It has taught me much of human nature, and of the 
nature of friendship." 

" But go on with your narrative," said the merchant. 

"Well, my property was all sold, and the very men whom I had 
started in business, and who on my money had realized fortunes, 
not only refused to assist me in my distress, but actually cut my 
acquaintance, when I had come to poverty. Oh! ingratitude! I 
have seen much of it in my short life; and many of my old friends, 
who had once felt proud to cultivate my friendship, now passed me 
unnoticed on the street. I felt this neglect keenly; but the in- 
gratitude of those whom I had benefited I felt far more, and it 
brought with it a kind of desperation, which drove me deeper into 
dissipated habits. I strove hard to reform, and in tears I bowed 
down before God, and prayed fervently that he would assist me to 
overcome my evil propensities, but it was not until I experienced 
the grace of God, that I had power to do so." 

The good-hearted merchant, at this announcement, looked 
astonished, and smiled with pleasure. 

"But," continued Grandison, "the power of the evil one 
tempted me away from the right path, and I left New Orleans, and 
wandered in pursuit of employment. No one would employ me, 
because I was dissipated; and distress of mind at my forlorn con- 
dition, drove me deeper in dissipation. Oh! could I have met 
but a friend, like you, to sustain and encourage me in the despe- 
rate effort, I should long since have forsaken the evil of my ways. 
How many are there, who have slidden into the whirlpool of in- 
temperance, who would gladly be rescued, would some friend but 
stretch his hand to save. It requires a Herculean effort to break 
the chain of a strong habit, but I feel that by the assistance of you, 
my friend, I shall conquer, and once more be a man." 

The young man, with a subdued manner, arose, left the room, 
and walked up Market street. 

"What does thee think of him now?" enquired the merchant. 



278 WITINGS OF THE MILPOD BARD. 

"The same that I did before," returned Rivingston. "Did you 
not hear liim say he had reformed and fallen? There is no de- 
pendence on a man who has once been dissipated." 

" Come, come, friend Rivingston, thou art rather too severe. 
Thee might as well say that a man who has once fallen in piety 
can never be restored. I know a man who was very intemperate 
until forty years of age, who then resolved to reform, and after 
breaking his pledge twice, did reform ; became pious, and never 
was known, during a long life, to taste ardent spirits." 

"But can you name another single instance?" 

"Yes, I can name to thee a very talented and celebrated man, 
that thee will recognize instantly, who was no other than the great 
statesman, orator and writer, . He drank to the greatest ex- 
cess, and was often seen down on the streets, though he reformed 
entirely, and was afterwards a candidate for the presidency. Many 
a man might be reformed, by a little kindness and assistance from 
his fellow-man." 

"Well, well," said Rivingston, "I would not have such a fellow 
in my family, for by and by he'll take advantage of you." 

"Thee thinks meanly of human nature. I have not only taken 
him into my large family, but I offered to give him a genteel suit 
of clothes, but he would not accept the cloth, unless I would con- 
sent to charge it to him and receive payment hereafter when he 
is able to get employment." 

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Rivingston, "I see how it is; by these 
little deceptions he is preparing the way to swindle you." 

"Poh! poh I I wouldn't have thy opinion of mankind, for the 
world. I believe the young man's heart is right, and he is en- 
deavoring to retrieve the errors of the past. T shall continue to 
assist him in well doing, and shall give him my confidence, until 
he betrays it. I will aid him all in my power to become a tempe- 
rate and useful man, though at present I see no prospect of his 
ever repaying rne for what he gets." 

"And never will," said Rivingston bluntly, as he arose and left 
the room. 

" It must be a bad man at heart," mentally ejaculated the mer- 
chant, " who is thus ever suspecting the motives of his fellow-man. 
I have ever observed, that a man who is guilty of a vice is most 
ready to suspect it in another, and is most severe when it is dis- 
covered. I am always afraid of that man who is ready to impute 
the worst of motives to another, and who has no mercy for the 
errors of his fellow-man ; for I have invariably found, that men the 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 279 

most virtuous and most free from the common vices of mankind, 
are most willing and ready to forgive the vices and follies of others." 

The generous merchant of Wilmington, after musing a while, 
closed his store, on Market street, and retired to the bosom of his 
large family. Ezekiel Freelingham belonged to that plain, un- 
pretending, and truly pious sect of people, denominated, in derision, 
Quakers, properly Friends. A better-hearted, or more generous 
man than Ezekiel Freelingham, never drew the breath of life. 
He had lived a strictly virtuous and temperate life; had married 
early a very amiable woman, and had, at the time of which we 
write, a family often children, the eldest of whom was a daughter, 
Clara, who was just bursting into the beautiful bloom of woman- 
hood ; and a beautiful little creature she was, and as amiable, gentle 
and intelligent, as she was pretty. 

The young man, Grandison, Charles Grandison, of whom we 
have been speaking, was found by the merchant in great distress. 
He had arrived at Wilmington, without a penny in his pocket, 
and found himself, on one of the coldest nights in January, wan- 
dering the streets, without a home and without a friend, not 
knowing where he should lay his head. Freelingham observed 
him for some time, gazing up and down the street, like one lost. 
He knew him to be a stranger, for it was not then as it is now, in 
Wilmington. Every resident's person, as well as his business, 
was then known to be such, as soon as seen. Ezekiel watched 
his motions, without appearing to do so, until he saw him seat 
himself on a block, at the end of the market house, and burst 
into tears. Ezekiel saw that he was in distress, and needed no 
incitement to awaken his sympathy, for he was ever ready to hear 
the cry of distress. He immediately approached, and enquired 
the cause of his grief; to which the young man responded, that 
he was a stranger, penniless, friendless, homeless. He gave a 
short account of his past career, and stated his desire to reform his 
life, and to become a useful member of society, by devoting him- 
self to some useful employment. The merchant bade him rise 
and follow him, which he did, down Market street. When they 
arrived at the door, the merchant turned to him, and said kindly: 
" Come in, here is my house, make it your home till you can do 
better, and may God prosper you." 

The heart of the young man swelled with emotion; his eyes 
filled with tears, and for a while he could not speak; but he 
grasped the hand of the generous merchant, with a firm and earnest 
pressure, that denoted his gratitude. The liberal oifer of so gen- 



280 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

teel and comfortable a home was more than he expected, and 
great was his relief when Clara, with her own fair hands, at the 
request of her mother, set a good supper before him, for he had 
eaten nothing that day. 

From that ever remembered night, Charles Grandison became 
domesticated in the merchant's family, and his conduct did not 
diminish the hope and regard which his benefactor entertained for 
him. He had a hard struggle to overcome his powerful habits; 
but, by the encouragement of his friend, and by dint of a deter- 
mined resolution, he came out conqueror, finally; and declared 
that he felt better than he remembered ever to have felt before. 

After he had conquered his habits, and had partaken of the hos- 
pitality and kindness of his benefactor for several weeks, for 
which and his clothes, he considered himself indebted, he thought 
it was time to look out for employment, that he might obtain the 
means to pay his friend. 

"I will employ thee in my store, if thee will stay," said the 
merchant, when Charles mentioned his intention ofgoing. "Thee 
can go or stay as thee likes best." 

"I will gladly stay," returned Charles, with a smile of pleasure, 
as he glanced at the lovely face of Clara, who, unknown to any 
one but herself, was equally glad at the determination of Charles, 
for in her eye he was a very pleasant companion. She felt that 
his absence would afflict her, without enquiring the cause, or even 
daring to confess to herself that he was any more to her than any 
other friend. His conversation was so pleasing, she said, and his 
manners so easy and winning, that she could not help liking him ; 
while, at the same time, she knew that the sly little god Cupid had, 
more than once, knocked for admittance at the door of her little 
heart, in which Love would find many of the Virtues, and more 
than one of the Graces, to keep him company. 

Charles, though a perfect stranger to business, rapidly became 
an adept as a salesman, as well as a book-keeper, and his art in 
selling goods became so well known, that many merchants wanted 
him, and would have given him much more than he was receiving; 
but he would not leave his friend, or benefactor as he called him, 
for he declared that the kindness he had shown him, and the obli- 
gations he had been under to him, had saved him from utter ruin. 
Gratitude was one of the virtues of Charles Grandison's heart. 

Every day he rose higher and higher in the estimation of his 
friend, the merchant; nor less was he rising in the estimation of 
the beautiful, amiable, and intelligent Clara. A year rolled away 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 281 

since the sad night, when he was in a strange place, and was 
without money, friends and a home, until he found them in the 
family of the generous merchant. He, many a cold stormy night, 
when comfortably seated in the parlor with Clara, referred to that 
melancholy period of his existence, and to the never to be for- 
gotten kindness of her father, to which she listened, as did the 
fair Desdemona to the story of the Moor of Venice, 

"She loved him for the dangers he had pass'd, 
And he loved her that she did pity them." 

So much did Charles grow in the esteem of his employer, that 
he entirely ceased his vigilance in watching over his daughter, for 
the conduct of the young man was exemplary in every respect, 
and he became piously inclined. At first the merchant was led, 
from the language of Rivingston, to watch him narrowly, lest he 
might take advantage of his kindness; but he became satisfied 
that Charles Grandison possessed a soul of honor, and that he 
would not stoop to a mean action. 

" Well, what does thee think now of the young man I took into 
my house?" enquired the merchant, with pride, one day, as he 
met Rivingston on the street. 

"Don't boast too soon," returned Rivingston, "you'll have 
ample time to repent it yet. Mark my words, you'll find a wolf 
in sheep's clothing yet, or I'm much mistaken." 

" Strange," said the merchant to himself as he passed on, 
" what a pleasure some people take in thinking evil of others. 
They seem to look on the dark side of every thing; they love to 
prophecy evil of other people, and then rejoice if their evil pro- 
phecies happen to prove true. They would rather be under the 
necessity of speaking evil of a man than good, and they secretly 
rejoice at the calamities of others. What pleasure they can possibly 
find in the misery of their fellow-beings I cannot conceive, for it 
gives me pain to hear of the downfall of any one, though it be 
one of the humblest of our race." 

Thus the generous merchant of Wilmington mused, as he 
wended his way homeward; and a happier home did not exist in 
this happy land. His family had been reared and regulated ac- 
cording to the quiet principles that guide and govern the conduct 
of the Friends, and so regularly did every thing go on, that it 
seemed like clock-work. Peace, love and order, were the presiding 
deities. The bickerings, and unpleasant scenes which occur in 
badly regulated families, were never known in his. Constant sun* 
36 



282 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

shine was there, and every member was solicitous of giving 
happiness to the rest. Freelingham, the merchant, when he 
married, or rather just before he married, made a contract with his 
wife, that they would live together in peace, and studiously avoid 
every cause of offence. This they afterwards put in practice. 
Instead of disputing about trifles, they made mutual concessions; 
and, if, at any time, the one should happen to get a little out of 
temper, the other was silent, or kindly endeavored to soothe. The 
consequence was, there was never any disturbance in the family. 
How happy and peaceful would the world become, if all persons 
before marriage would make such an agreement, and keep it sacred, 
as did this exemplary pair, whose days flowed on in uninterrupted 
peace and pleasure. 

Charles Grandison had never passed his time in such uninter- 
rupted happiness; the contrast between his present and past 
life, struck him forcibly. He had never been so happy in the 
gaudy halls of grandeur and dissipation, for his life then was one 
constant feverish dream ; now it was a beautiful reality of pure, 
calm, rational enjoyment, which left no sting behind. 

Every day Charles, almost insensibly, became more and more 
attached to Clara; for he saw in her mother a model of what she 
promised to be; but he trembled when he thought of the depth 
to which he was sufi'ering his attachment to go, and of the disap- 
pointment that he feared, nay, felt almost confident, must follow, 
if he aspired to the hand of Clara. He had frankly told the story 
of his former dissipated life, which, however, he did not regret, 
for truth is always best; and knowing how strict the Friends are 
in regard to moral character, he feared that the merchant would 
not trust him with a jewel so precious as his daughter. Then that 
incorrigible enemy, poverty, was against him, and that alone was 
an insuperable barrier. He, therefore, thought it the wisest course 
to struggle against that afiection, which was stealing into his heart- 
But he did not know the powerful strength of that passion, until 
he attempted to overcome it, nor did he know that the fair Clara 
felt for him any more than mere friendship, until his altered manner 
and coldness threw her off" her guard, and betrayed the flict that 
she had secretly indulged and cherished an affection for him, as 
deep and undying as that which he felt for her. Her mild, melting 
blue eye had often told tales of her partiality; but he doubted, 
knowing that all women are more or less coquettish; and though 
she had rejected one suitor, under circumstances that went plainly 
to prove that it was on his account, still he doubted whether she 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 283 

felt for him any more than friendship. Love is very suspicious, as 
well as jealous. 

When Charles formed his resolution to overcome the feelings in 
time, he endeavored to avoid the society of Clara as much as pos- 
sible, so as not to be observed ; but the quick eye of woman's 
affection saw it. and the effect was soon seen in the altered manner 
of Clara. She was no longer cheerful, and her cheek became 
pale. One day Charles suddenly entered the room where she was, 
and surprised her in tears, and discovered from a sentence she 
had written with a pencil, that his altered manner was the cause 
of her unhappiness. His resolution instantly forsook him; he 
took her hand between both of his, and sunk down on the sofa 
beside her; but in vain he endeavored to summon resolution to 
unbosom himself. He trembled, and observed the same tremulous 
motion in her hand. She lifted to his her tearful eyes for a mo- 
ment, and though not a word was spoken, he felt that his fate 
henceforth was forever sealed up with hers. He silently arose and 
left her, with the resolve to cherish the affection he felt for so pure 
and lovely a creature, be the consequence what it might. He felt 
a deep degree of gratitude to her, for cherishing an affection for 
him in his poverty, when she knew that he had been wild and ex- 
travagant, dissipated and reckless. 

Charles Grandison knew not how high he stood in the estimation 
of the merchant, during the second year of his reformation. Indeed 
it could not be otherwise, for many persons had noticed his genteel 
bearing and moral course of life, and spoke of him in the highest 
terms. The father and mother of Clara both noticed the growing 
attachment of the young couple, and said nothing; for Charles 
was very attentive to business, and had gained a thorough know- 
ledge of all the merchant's affairs. 

It was at the close ofthe second year of the clerkship of Charles, 
that he was seated with Clara before a cheerful fire, in the cold 
month of January. He had purposely sought the meeting, to 
know her sentiments with regard to him, as she was now addressed 
by one of the most wealthy young men in Philadelphia. 

"Tell nie seriously," said he, "whether you regard me, and 
whether I am to live in hope, or crush the dearest " 

" Have not my actions told thee, Charles, long since, that I have 
never regarded any but thee? I have been taught to be candid, 
and I confess that thy regard for me cannot be more sincere, than 
that I feel for thee. I first pitied and then loved thee, and nothing 
can destroy my regard." 



284 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

" Enough, dearest Clara, I am henceforth the happiest of men. 
I shall live for you alone." 

It was not long after this interview, that Charles Grandison solicited 
the hand of Clara in marriage, and it was pledged to him. The 
parents, finding that the happiness of their child depended upon 
it, soon made up their minds, and the time was appointed for the 
marriage to take place- Never, perhaps, were two young persons 
more completely happy, for the affection they cherished for each 
other was disinterested, and unpolluted by any sinister or sordid 
motives. 

One day, a little before the time the marriage was to take place, 
the merchant came home with a cloud on his brow. 

"Ah! Rachel," he said to his wife, "I have seen a man from 
the South, who brings bad tidings concerning Charles, and we 
must break off the match, unless — ' — " 

"What is it, for mercy's sake?" enquired Rachel, turning pale 
with affright. 

"He says that Charles Grandison killed a man in New Orleans, 
and had to fly from the State." 

"Oh! dear," exclaimed his wife, "this is heart-breaking news 
for poor Clara, and she must not hear it suddenly." 

"It is all over town by this time," said the merchant, "and the 
marriage must proceed no further.". 

The next instant Charles rushed into the room, pale as one just 
risen from the dead. He had heard the report, and knew that it 
would be in vain to deny it, unsubstantiated by proof. He seemed 
like a man suddenly bereft of his senses, while loudly and wildly 
he protested his innocence. The sound of his voice brought Clara 
into the room, and, as Charles ran at her like a madman, exclaiming: 

"I am innocent! Oh! Clara, I am innocent of the crime I" 
she swooned, and fell into the arms of her father. 

Some time elapsed ere Clara revived, and then she awoke to 
wretchedness, though she resolutely refused to believe that Charles 
had been a murderer. The man, who brought the news, had a 
New Orleans paper, in which a large reward was offered for the 
apprehension of Charles Grandison, who slew a man in New 
Orleans and had fled from the city. 

The good merchant was grieved, for he could not shut his eyes 
to the evidence before him. There were names and dates. The 
mother's grief was great, thus to see her daughter's happiness 
blasted in the morning of life. Poor Clara was distracted, and 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 285 

was prostrated on a bed of sickness, by this horrible charge against 
her plighted husband. 

Lander, the man from New Orleans, determined to secure the 
reward, and accordingly procured an officer and arrested Charles 
Grandison. Charles expressed a willingness to go, and requested 
only time to make some little preparation. When he went to the 
chamber of Clara, to bid her farewell, she fainted, at the moment 
he took her hand and fell upon his knees to protest his innocence 
of the crime with which he was charged, and to implore her to 
suspend her opinion of him until she should see him again. 
Fearing the consequences, should he remain longer, he arose and 
with a bursting heart, left her in charge of her weeping mother. 

"Alas!" said the merchant, as he stood gazing upon the stage 
as it rolled down Market street conveying av/ay the young man 
he had been a father to, and who was soon to have become his 
his son by marriage, "how strange are the vicissitudes of life, and 
how singular is the fortune of some men ! With all his former errors, 
I believed Charles to be a young man of excellent qualities, and 
even now I cannot believe him guilty of murder, notwithstanding 
the strong circumstantial evidence against him. I do not repent 
having been his friend, for he has thus been induced to forsake 
his intemperate habits." 

"What do you think of your protegee now?" interrogated 
Rivingston, as he came up rubbing his hands with apparent 
pleasure that evil had befallen Charles. "Didn't I tell you so! 
Didn't I tell you that you'd repent your bargain, and that he was 
a villain; a wolf in sheep's clothing? Didn't I tell you he would 
aspire to the hand of your daughter, and bring misery upon her? 
This is what comes of young ladies listening to the love of strangers. 
Many girls from being too anxious to get married, have thrown 
themselves away upon strangers, and have been awakened from 
their dream of connubial bliss to find themselves in the arms of 
murderers, as your daughter had like to have done. Ha! ha! ha! 
I tell- you what it is, the old proverb is true as gospel, that strange 
faces make fools fond." 

" Well, I've heard thee through," returned the merchant, "and 
I must be allowed to speak my mind as plainly as thee has done. 
In the first place, friend Rivingston, I believe that thee loves to 
prophecy evil things of thy fellow-men; and in the second place, 
that thee takes pleasure in seeing thy evil prophecies fulfilled. It 
is very true, that we should not hastily place our confidence in 



286 -WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Strangers, but to tell thee the truth, I would sooner run the risk 
of being betrayed, than never to trust my fellow-beings." 

" You are wrong in your opinion of me," stammered Rivingston, 
for he felt that the merchant had touched upon the right key, 
though he pretended it was the wrong one. " I am not pleased 
at the evil of others, but the superior advantages I have had in 
England, in point of education and society, have given me a 
knowledge of human nature that qualifies me to judge of men, 
and of the result of their actions, in a manner that could not be 
expected of a person raised in this country." 

" Oh ! yes," said the merchant, speaking ironically, and somewhat 
nettled at the disparaging observation, " there's nothing good out 
of England, and every thing in England is always superior to any 
thing in any other country; but if the superior advantages thee 
speaks of have the same influence on all other hearts that they 
have on thine, I would prefer the inferior advantages of American 
education and society, with all the ignorance arising therefrom." 

"You are very severe to-day, friend Ezekiel." 

" Not more than thou art, friend Rivingston. Thee seems to 
have prided thyself on a want of feeling for the unfortunate young 
man from the first, and to have taken pleasure in foreboding, and 
in the fulfilment of the evil fate that followed him. Now, friend 
Rivingston, I never knew a man who rejoiced in the folly and the 
downfall of others, who did not in the end meet the same or a 
similar fate himself, though he might prosper awhile. Among 
the laws of Divine Providence, which regulate the affairs of men, 
there is one of retribution, and by it, sooner or later, every man 
receives justice. For every bad action, we suffer even in this 
world, as certainly as we commit it; and, vice versa, for every good 
one, we are rewarded." 

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Rivingston in derision, "if I am to 
admit your superstitious notions, I should say that you have received 
a great reward for your good action in taking a murderer into 
your house, and who had as good as become the husband of your 
daughter." 

This thrust at the good-hearted merchant was severe, but he 
calmly replied, without exhibiting any degree of passion. 

" I expected no reward for doing what I did. The approval of 
my conscience, for having rescued a fellow-being from want and 
from the vortex of ruin, was reward enough; but, friend Rivings- 
ton, I have faith to believe that I shall never suffer in the end for 
havinw done a good deed. The ways of Providence are mysterious, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 287 

and we cannot at all times trace each link in the long chain of 
circumstances; hence what at first may appear a curse, will, in 
the course of time and circumstances, eventuate as a blessing." 

"A plague take such blessings as your boasted Providence has 
seen fit to bestow on you," said Rivingston in derision. " I should 
not desire many such blessings from any humbug Providence." 

"Thee is a worse man than I imagined thee to be." 

" What bugbear have you now discovered, friend Ezekiel?" 

" I discover thee to be an infidel, and so sure as Voltaire re- 
pented in his dying moments, so sure will tribulation come upon 
thee. Let me advise thee to reform thy ways and opinions, or 
that law of retribution, of which I spoke, will overtake thee." 

" I defy it — let it come !" exclaimed Rivingston, with an affected 
laugh. " I shall never believe in the superstitious nonsense that you 
teach." 

" Thee will repent it, perhaps, when too late." 

"Never, I hope, so much as you have cause to repent the folly 
of fostering in your family a murderer, and of murdering the peace 
of your daughter, by suffering her to think of such a fellow." 

" Let time prove the matter," said the merchant calmly. 

"Ay, and it will be a sore trial to you in the end. I know not 
which to deprecate most, your folly or your insolence." 

"Well! well! friend Rivingston, it is useless for thee to become 
angry at what I have said, for T have only followed thy example of 
speaking plainly, and I spoke the truth." 

" Yes, Mr. Ezekiel Freelingham, and if I mistake not," said 
Rivingston, with a dark expression of countenance, "you'll have 
more cause for repentance than L Remember, sir, there is such 
a thing as one man being in the power of another." 

"Thee alludes to my indebtedness, I suppose?" interrogated 
the merchant, as with surprise he looked at Rivingston. 

" It matters not to what I allude, but you had better mind whom 
you insult," returned Rivingston, with an ominous look, as he 
wheeled on his heel and went down the street like lightning. 

Rivingston was a morose, ill-natured man, who cherished malice, 
when once he conceived a dislike. He never forgave what he 
considered an insult, and no kind offices could appease him when 
offended. He was inclined to think the worst of all men, and 
nothing galled him like being told of his real character. His 
hatred was bitter, and he stopped at nothing to gratify his revenge. 
Dark, designing and revengeful, he brooded over a slight offence 
until it was magnified, and he resorted to all the underhanded and 



288 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

secret means he could invent to injure the individual who was 
so unfortunate as to offend him. 

Ezekiel Freelingham, the merchant, was precisely the reverse. 
He knew revenge, malice, and hatred, only by name, and instead 
of wishing to injure, he was ever ready to benefit his fellow-man, 
and ever practised that golden precept, of doing good for evil, 
which act seems almost superhuman. After the last meeting, 
Rivingston hated the merchant bitterly. He had never regarded 
him warmly, for indeed he was one of those nondescripts, who 
sincerely love nobody. Ezekiel had frequently taken the friendly 
liberty of telling him of his glaring and egregious faults, and of ex- 
horting him to reform them, a liberty and a crime, in his eyes, 
which he never forgave. 

Rivingston also hated the just and generous merchant, as the 
Athenians, in ancient Greece, hated Aristides; because he was 
celebrated for his virtues. Every man, woman and child, in Wil- 
mington, knew Ezekiel, and so proverbial had he become for his 
many virtues, that every one, save Rivingston, spoke of him as the 
good-hearted, or the generous-hearted merchant. His praise was 
on every tongue, and many generous acts that he had performed, 
had become invested with all the attributes of romance; many a 
time had Rivingston sneered, when he listened to the praises 
bestowed on the generous merchant, by some widow he had as- 
sisted in distress; by some young man he had started in business; 
or by some person he had rescued from ruin. 

"Alas! I fear for the fate of poor Charles," said Rachel Free- 
lingham one day, " though I believe him innocent, for he would 
not harm an insect." 

" I fear the worst," added Clara, as the tears gushed from her 
eyes, "for we have not heard a word from him, though he has been 
gone several months." 

Charles, in the meantime, had arrived at New Orleans, where he 
was arraigned as a murderer, one of the strongest witnesses against 
him being Henry Langhorn, a former associate, who had won a 
great part of his estate, at the gaming-table. This young man 
produced in court a cane, on the head of which was engraved the 
name of Charles Grandison. Charles could not but confess that 
it was his. He remembered to have lost it, but knew not how. 
The cane was bloody, and to it was adhering human hair, which 
was of the same color as that of the murdered man. 

When this evidence was brought before the court, Charles 
trembled, turned pale as the sheeted dead, and was near falling; 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD* 289 

for, though confident before that no evidence could be brought 
against him, he now thought that his fate was sealed. His powerful 
emotions were considered by the court as evidences of his guilt; 
and when Henry Langhorn swore that he saw Charles in the room 
with the man who was murdered, and that he heard a scuffle and 
blows and the voice of Charles, every person was satisfied of his 
guilt, and Charles gave up to despair. Langhorn had been his 
enemy ever since he charged him with cheating him at the gaming- 
table. But there was another witness, a girl of equivocal character, 
whom Langhorn brought against Charles. When she approached 
the stand to take ihe usual oath, she was observed to turn pale 
and tremble. She pushed the book away from her and fainted, 
which circumstance threw the whole court into excitement and 
surprise. When she recovered, she protested that she could not 
take the oath; but she obstinately refused, for some time, to tell 
the reason of her repugnance and alarm. After a time, she con- 
fessed that she, and another, had been bribed to perjure themselves, 
by swearing that Charles Grandison had committed the deed. By 
persuasions and threats, she revealed the fact that Langhorn had 
done the deed, and that to screen himself and gratify his revenge, 
he had induced her to take the cane of Charles from his room, 
and smear it with the blood of the murdered man. Another person 
was now brought forward to testify (o the same, and it was proven 
to the astonishment of the whole court, that Charles was innocent 
of any participation in the murder. Had these two witnesses sworn 
as had Langhorn, and as he had suborned them, an innocent man 
must have suffered the penalty, as no doubt many have done. 
Greatly was Charles Grandison rejoiced., as the reader may suppose, 
at his miraculous escape. Langhorn was tried, and after being 
convicted, confessed the crime. Fearful of being suspected him- 
self, as both he and Charles boarded in the same hotel at the time 
the murder was committed, he had, by the assistance of two 
persons employed in the hotel, formed the plan of evidence related. 
Langhorn, on being in turn reduced to poverty at the gaming-table, 
as he had reduced Charles, resolved on committing the deed, as 
the murdered man was said to have vast treasure in his possession. 
Charles having suddenly left the hotel and the city of New Orleans 
at the very nick of time, gave probability to the assertion of Lang- 
horn that he was the murderer, and the production of the cane, 
having on it the name of Charles Grandison, and being covered 
with blood and hair, satisfied every one that he was truly guilty of 
the deed, which accounted for his sudden flight. 
37 



290 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Charles was again at liberty and freed from every suspicion, and 
being now piously inclined, he offered up his thanks to that Being 
who had saved him by what almost appeared a miracle. But to 
save himself had cost every penny he possessed, and of course he 
had not the means of returning to Clara, whom he had dearly 
loved, and to whom he had deferred writing, that he might have 
the pleasure of imparting to her, with his own lips, the joyful tid- 
ings of his triumphant innocence. He considered it folly, not to 
say madness, to call on his uncle in his distress, as they had parted 
in anger, and his uncle's unforgiving disposition he well knew. 

One morning, while standing on the hotel steps revolving in 
his mind what to do, he was startled by the approach of a person, 
habited in black, who placed a note in his hand, sealed with black, 
and without saying a word retired. He repaired to his room, and, 
opening the note, discovered that his uncle was dead, and that the 
whole of his vast estate was bequeathed to charitable institutions, 
and to the city corporation. Charles' heart sunk within him. 
Then his uncle had remembered his animosity till death! He had 
always intended that Charles should be his heir, until they had 
quarreled and separated, and he now grieved to think that he 
would be under the necessity of seeking some kind of business 
in New Orleans, until he could realize enough money to pay his 
expenses to Wilmington. 

After searching for employment some time, he obtained a situ- 
ation in a mercantile establishment, in which he had been busily 
employed some months. He had written to Clara, but, to his 
surprise and mortification, he had received no answer. What 
could be the cause? Had she been satisfied of his guilt, and 
repudiated him ? He could not tell. His heart ached with 
anguish; more for her neglect, than the loss of all that his uncle 
possessed. 

One day, while engaged in business, and his mind was wander- 
ing far away to Wilmington, and the fair one there for whom his 
heart alone beat, a gentleman entered the store, and requested his 
presence at twelve o'clock, at a certain number in a certain street, 
merely observing that he would then and there hear of something 
greatly to his advantage. He could not imagine what it could be, 
it had been so long since his uncle died, and knowing that his 
will was adverse to him, he could not suppose that it was any 
thing concerning that, and he was entirely at a loss. 

Curiosity made him so punctual that, just as the clock tolled 
twelve, his hand was on the door bell at the appointed place. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORU BARD. 291 

After being ushered into a parlor of great splendor, by a venerable 
gentleman, and seated, the gentleman drew a parchment from his 
desk, and said, 

"This, sir, is the last will of your uncle, which was found yes- 
terday, and which you will find is in your favor." 

Charles took the will, and, in reading it, discovered that his 
uncle had repented of having cruelly cut off his nephew in his 
former wills, and that accordingly he had bequeathed the whole 
of his vast estate to him. This will revoked the former and all 
preceding wills, as it bore a later date, and was regularly signed 
and witnessed. 

The joy of Charles at his good fortune was great, as may readily 
be conceived, not so much, however, for the sake of wealth, as for 
the fact that it would place him on an equality with Clara, and 
prevent any injurious surmises that he sought advantage in seeking 
an alliance with her. He, therefore, took the proper legal steps 
preparatory to settling up the estate, and again wrote to Clara, 
concerning his good fortune. But to this letter as before, he 
received no answer, and he feared that death, or some other great 
misfortune, was the cause. 

Two years had rolled by since he had fallen heir to the estate, 
when nearly all the business was settled, and he began to think 
about going in search of Clara, whom he had not seen for almost 
three years. But on the day before that which he had appointed 
for his departure, he was riding a splendid charger, alone, on one 
of the roads in the environs of New Orleans, thinking of the 
joyful hour in which he should meet Clara, when his horse was 
suddenly frightened, and ran into the city at full speed. Being 
delicate, he was unable to hold him, and as he rapidly wheeled 
round a corner, plunging at a furious rate, the horse fell and threw 
him over his head. He fell against a post, and was taken up in a 
state of insensibility, By this accident his hip joint was dislo- 
cated, his skull fractured, and he received much injury besides. 
The surgeon was under ths necessity of trephining him, or sawing 
out a part of the skull, in order to raise the depressed portion of 
the fractured bone, which was pressing on the brain and rendered 
him insensible. For a long time his recovery was doubtful, and 
several times his physicians abandoned him to death. 

More than a year elapsed ere he could walk alone, and it was 
between the fourth and fifth year of his absence from Clara, when 
he went on board of a brig bound to Philadelphia. The sea breeze 
invigorated his frame, and he began to rejoice in returning health, 



293 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

and the hope of once more beholding his betrothed Clara, after so 
long and painful an absence. But the brig had been at sea but a 
few hours, when a black looking vessel ran down upon her, which 
the practiced eye of the captain at once recognized to be a pirate. 
If there was any doubt, it was dispelled in a few minutes when 
she hoisted the red flag, the symbol of blood, and then run up a 
black one to denote that they might expect no mercy. 

Charles had heard that the motto of pirates was, "dead men 
tell no tales," and he shuddered at the horrible death that awaited 
him, as he fancied. He bravely advised resistance to the last, 
but the captain declared it would be vain, as it would be to 
attempt to escape by flight, and would effectually shut out all 
chance for mercy. Charles reasoned that if they had to die, they 
might as well, and indeed had better die fighting, as the horrors 
of death would not be so great when in a state of excitement. 

Still the dark looking vessel bore down upon them, while an 
awful stillness prevailed on board the brig. Consternation pre- 
vailed among the crew, for there were but few arms on board and 
they were irresolute whether to use them or not, until the frown- 
ing guns of the pirate came into full view, when despair sat on 
every countenance. The horrors of death stared them in the face. 
The West India Islands were at that time infested with pirates, 
and the tales that had been told, respecting the manner in which 
unfortunate crews had perished by their hands, were appalling 
Some had been doomed to see the throats of their comrades cut, 
one after another, in their sight, until it came to their turn to 
share the same fate; while others had been blindfolded and made 
to walk a slippery plank, from which they were plunged into 
the sea. 

When the pirates came on board, the scene was awful beyond 
description. The women and children, who were passengers, fell 
upon their knees before the ferocious looking chief, whose blood 
red face was half covered with a long black beard, and with heart- 
rending cries, implored him to spare their lives. Every counte- 
nance bore the agonized expressions of despair, while these terrific 
desperadoes, with glittering knives in their hands, were searching 
for money and other valuables. 

Charles Grandison shuddered at the fate that, in all probability, 
awaited the unhappy and helpless crew and passengers. But, to 
the astonishment of all, the pirates, after having gathered all that 
they could find of value, retired without inflicting any injury, 
which lenity they ascribed to the passive conduct of the captain 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 293 

and crew of the brig. They were now as exquisitely happy as 
they had been miserable, for we judge of, and enjoy, every thing 
by contrast. The vessel went on her way rejoicing. 

Nothing further occurred worthy of notice, during the voyage, 
and Charles was extremely happy when his straining eye first 
caught a glimpse of Wilmington, the very sight of which recalled 
some of the happiest moments of his life. He gazed long and 
wishfully, while the image of the fair Clara rose in all its beauty 
before his mental eye. But instantly the blissful vision was dissi- 
pated, by the distressing thought that she might have denounced 
and discarded him as a guilty wretch, and might have be- 
stowed her affections upon another. He had written to her twice, 
and she had notanswered his letters. Might she not have dismissed 
him from her mind, as unworthy, and married another? Ah! 
there was the cruel conjecture. If she had been true to her vow, 
might not the grief she had endured have destroyed her? Oh! He 
could not bear to think of it. In the turmoil of business he had 
never had such surmises. But might not one of them prove true? 

When Charles Grandison's feet once more trod the earth, he 
hastened to Wilmington to know the worst. But who can im- 
agine his feelings, when on repairing to the spot where once 
stood the merchant's house, in the halls of which he had enjoyed 
so much unalloyed happiness, he found a new building, all traces 
of the former one having disappeared. Where was his friend and 
his interesting family? He made enquiry, and was informed that 
a fire had consumed the old one, destroying the store-house of 
Freelingham, with all its contents, and nearly all the furniture in 
his house. He was also informed, that his policy of insurance 
had expired but the day before the fire, by which, the insurance 
not having been renewed, he lost all. Charles' heart ached with 
unaffected sorrow, and he enquired where he might find his gen- 
erous benefactor and friend, and he was referred for information 
to a person in King street. He immediately called on him, and 
was told of the misfortune of the fire, and that the merchant had 
started in business again in the lower part of the town, but had 
been unfortunate, and that the last he heard of him was that, after 
several removals in Wilmington, and having tried several kinds of 
business, gradually getting worse and worse, being much harassed 
by creditors, he had removed to Philadelphia in rather straitened 
circumstances. He had never heard from him since. 

Charles listened to this narrative with feelings of pity and pain, 
but resolved at all hazards to find him, if he could be found on 



294 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

the habitable globe. Accordingly he went on board of a packet, 
and sailed to Philadelphia. For some time he could obtain no 
tidings of the merchant, but at length a man told him that a young 
lady, of the name of Freelingham, had kept a little fancy store in 
Fourth street, to which place he repaired, and was informed that 
a family of Friends had lived there, but had removed down in 
Southwark. When he called at the place in Southwark, he was told 
that they were keeping a boarding-house far out Arch street, and 
without delay he went thither, but was informed that their goods 
had been sold for rent, and they knew not whither they had gone, 
though it was believed that they had left the city. 

Sad and disappointed, Charles retired to his lodgings. But he 
was still determined to find them, and it was not long before he 
learned that Freelingham was working daily in a sugar-house, and 
in great poverty. He went to the place designated, and the first 
man he saw was his old friend at hard work ; but he did not know him, 
so much was he altered by distress of mind, loss of flesh, and the 
humble garb he wore. Neither did the merchant know Charles, 
so elegantly was he dressed, and so pale from the injury he had 
received. But a mutual recognition took place, and the merchant 
related how he had been reduced to abject poverty; how afire 
had burnt his house and store; how Rivingston had conceived a 
hatred to him, and had bought debts against him, and prosecuted 
him; how he had thrown him into prison, from which he had been 
rescued by the Friends, and how he had struggled and toiled in 
poverty to support his large family of children. 

"Thee must go home with me, Charles," said the merchant, 
while tears stood in both their eyes, "for though we are now very 
poor, and have nothing but what we work for, thee is welcome 
still to what we have." 

The native kindness of the merchant's heart still shone forth, 
and touched Charles to the soul, as he followed the laborer, who 
had been an independent merchant, to his humble abode. When 
they entered the small house, in a by-street, what a contrast did 
it present to their once happy home in Wilmington! The first 
objects that greeted the eyes of Charles, were the wife and daughter 
at work in the wash-tub. Clara instantly recognized him, and 
burst into tears; but her mother did not know him. Dressed in 
the most ordinary garb, they were employed in washing for the 
family, being unable to employ washerwomen. Charles clasped 
Clara in his arms, as he exclaimed: "Weep no more, for the day 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARU. 295 

of your suffering is past. You have been friends to me in distress, 
and I will now be a friend to you in the hour of your need." 

All stared, as he drew from his pocket a bag of gold, and counted 
down the money for the clothes and board that he was indebted 
for when taken into the family, in distress. 

"Heaven be praised!" exclaimed Rachel Freelingham, "this 
money will pay our rent, which we saw no prospect of paying, 
and will save our few goods from being sold." 

"One good action," returned Charles, "deserves another. You 
assisted me when I had not a friend on earth, and I am happy now 
to have it in my power amply to reward you. Your kindness to 
me now brings you relief in the hour of need, and proves that we 
do not lose by doing a good action." 

Happy was that family, once more, when Charles informed them 
of the immense wealth that had fallen to him, and not less happy 
was Charles, when he learned from the lips of Clara that she had 
been true to her vow, and had never believed in his guilt. She 
had never received his letters, though she had seen an account in 
the papers, of the manner in which his innocence had been 
proved. 

Charles and Clara were married in Philadelphia, and the whole 
family, at his solicitation, returned to Wilmington, where he bought 
the house built upon theruins of their old residence, and started 
the merchant in business again, in which he prospered and became 
independent. Clara no longer toiled over the wash-tub, but lived 
in modest affluence and ease. 

Rivingston, who had mainly contributed to ruin Freelingham, 
became very rich on the spoils, and went off no one knew whither. 
Often did the merchant speak of him in pity, and say, that he could 
not always prosper in the ruin of others, and that the day would come 
when retribution would overtake him. And that day did come. 
Many years passed away; a family of lovely children grew up 
round Charles, and the merchant had grown old, and was living in 
happy independence, when one day, during the period that the 
rail road from Baltimore to Wilmington was being constructed, 
Ezekiel Freelingham was walking with his grand-son a little way 
out of town, looking at the workmen, when he spoke to an old 
man who was employed in hard labor. 

"I think I have seen thee somewhere," said the merchant. 

"Very likely," returned the laborer gruffly, "I've often been 
there." 

Ezekiel looked at him again, and said. 



296 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORU BARD. 

"Thee favors a man I knew, named Rivingston." 

"That's my name,'* returned the laborer. 

Ezekiel started with surprise. 

"And what could have brought thee to labor? Did thee know 
Ezekiel Freelingham ?" 

Rivingston looked up and, recognizing him, said, 

"Ah! yes, and my cruelty in ruining him, was what brought 
me to hard labor. Many a time have I thought of your words, 
that my wealth would never do me any good. From the first it 
proved a curse, and when I invested it with the best prospects, it 
was sure to turn out ruinous, and thus speculation after speculation 
failed; I was involved in debt, and was imprisoned two years. 
After a series of ill-fortune, you see me, in my old age, reduced 
to labor. All I have is now under execution, and unless I can 
manage to stop it, my family will be turned out of doors, and tliat, 
too, for the paltry sum of forty dollars." 

The merchant thought of the injuries he had received at the 
hands of Rivingston, but his generous feelings prevailed; the "still 
small voice" whispered, do good for evil, and he furnished Rivings- 
ton the means to save his family from being driven from their 
home. The unfeeling man was touched, and more completely 
humbled than if he had oppressed him in turn. 

The merchant returned home to relate the singular circumstance 
to his happy family, and all agreed that though Rivingston had 
his day of triumph in oppressing his neighbor, yet far greater, in 
doing good for evil, and in relieving the oppressed, had been the 
triumph of the generous-hearted merchant of Wilmington. 



Love wandered one day round the globe in his glory, 
His light airy chariot by doves was conveyed; 

His regalia and emblems, that 'lumine his story, 
Around were in beauty and brilliance displayed. 

The bow and the billet were there, and the dart, 

And the wreath round the banner in beauty unfurled; 

Transfixed on an arrow was seen a huge heart, 

As a type that love conquers and governs the world. 



38 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 297 



It was a lovely night in June; the air 

Came sighing from the south, and every breeze 

Breathed the rich breath of roses. Not a sound 

Disturbed the silent city; every pulse 

Of life was locked in slumber, and the moon. 

High in her silvery chariot, was alone 

A witness to the larceny of love. 

The boudoir of the beautiful, the gay, 

The fair Ophelia, opened to my sight 

A garden of fresh flowers, and in the midst 

A centre table, scattered o'er with books, 

The tales of rich romance and chivalry. 

Beside it stood her golden harp, which oft 

Her fairy fingers, in the summer's eve, 

Had waked to all the witchery of song. 

In Lydian strains, or sweeter lays of love. 

On tiptoe to that paradise I crept. 

As did the serpent steal into the bowers 

Of Eden, and the bosom of fair Eve; 

But not like him to steal away the pearl 

Of precious innocence. The demon heart 

That wins but to betray, and tramples on 

A pure and fond affection, is a fiend 

That knows no generous feehng, and should hug 

Hyenas to his breast, and never know 

The pure delights and luxury of love. 

I stood in beauty's boudoir gazing round, 
Intoxicated with the breath of flowers. 
And fixed by some sweet spell, like that which holds 
The spirit in dehrious dreams of bliss. 
Where was the angel of that Eden ?— where 
The gay, the graceful, and the fair Ophelia? 
Oh! there, before me, on a crimson couch 
Reclined the heavenly creature; round her brow, 
Her lofty intellectual brow, as fair 
And smooth as alabaster, there was bound 
A wreath of roses, emblems of her beauty. 
I gazed with rapture on her graceful form. 
That painter's pencil and the sculptor's art 
In vain might strive to rival; it was small. 
Yet perfect in its symmetry; 'twas frail, 
Yet full; nay more, voluptuously lovely. 
The moon, emerging from a fleecy cloud. 
Revealed, to my enraptured view, a face 
As lovely as the houries have in heaven. 



298 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Oh ! 'twas ecstatic — 'twas a face so fair, 
So full of love, and gentleness, and bliss, 
That fancy cannot make its image now. 
Nor love forget its lineaments; it was 
Indeed a picture of surpassing beauty. 

Entranced I stood still gazing on the face 
Of the fair young Ophelia; on her cheek 
The roses of her sixteenth summer bloomed, 
And her red luscious lip, ye gods ! they were 
Like two sweet slices of ripe watermelon ! 
A soft, sweet smile stole o'er them, as oft steals 
The sunlight o 'er the petals of a rose. 
Enraptured still I gazed upon her charms, 
Each moment more enraptured — till my soul 
Seemed spell-bound by her witchery, as birds 
Are fascinated by the serpent's power, 
Save that her charm was loveliness. I stood 
Fixed like a statue, while my fluttering heart 
Beat audibly, and every feeUng seemed 
Transfixed in form. Again she sweetly smiled, 
And as I snatched a burning kiss, a voice 
Loud as a peal of thunder, cried, beware ! 
Starting I woke, and found two dazzling eyes 
Gazing upon me — I was mesmerized. , 



ON RECEIVING FEOM HEE A WRITTEN POETIC EPISTLE. 

When from old ocean's deejD, by magic spell. 
Fair Venus rose, in all her angel charms; 

The shouting sea-nymphs woke the silver shell. 
And hailed her rosy bloom, and iDolished arms. 

The Naiad train, attentive from the wave, 
And every nymph, rose on the bi-eezy air; 

While the pleased goddess all her graces gave. 
And shook the dew-drops from her waving hair. 

High on the billowy surge she blew her shell. 
Around her floating chai-iot, many a sound 

Of glad'ning triumph, bade old Triton swell 
His thund'ring conch, and wake the sea-gods round, 

And thou, fair maid, if aught of oaten reed, 
Can swell thy praise, in music more refined, 

Thou hast a nobler beauty — nobler meed, 
The rich, celestial beauty of the mind. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 299 

If the dark caves of ocean could inspire 
The tuneful shell when love sprang up from gloom, 

What great incentive to my sounding lyre, 
Must be the charms, the pride of Ellen^s bloom. 

Throned is expression, love and every grace, 
In thy fair form, which none can prize too high; 

For heaven, as tho' she left her native place, 
Shines in the lustre of thy beauteous eye. 

Sweet as the strains of wild ^olean lyre. 

Is the dear song that warbles from thy tongue; 
Methinks almost thou caugh'st from heaven the fire, 

Or that empyrean choir had lofty sung. 

O for some Handel's soul-inspiring art, 

That I might sing of love and virtue meek; 
That I might paint the virtues of a heart. 

Which even glows on Ellen's crimson cheek. 

Some Grecian pencil, with a Raphael's blush. 

Some Angelo, with shades still more refined; 
Might will essay to picture — but no brush 

Can paint the heavenly beauties of thy mind. 

But how sweet is love's adoring sigh. 

How dear the modest blush on thy fair cheek; 
How dear the dancing splendor of thine eye. 

Brilliance that charms, and brilliance that can speak. 

Soft as the zephyr in the vernal shower. 

Is the mild whisper of the maid I love; 
Gentle as shadows in the evening bower. 

Soft as the silver dew that decks the grove. 

Say, beauteous Ellen, thou divinely fair, 

Shall my fond hope still live without alloy; 
Or must the thrilling horrors of despair, 

Sink to my heart, and canker all my joy? 

that were cruel, and blest Hope replies — 
She hves to love, she knows no other meed; 

Go read thy story in her beaming eyes, 
Go, and permit not thy true heart to bleed. 

1 envy not Golconda's golden coast. 

Nor all the silver mines of Peru's store; 

Rich in thy love, thou art my highest boast, 

Rich in thy love, 1 ask — I wish no more. 





LOOK upon the Bible as the oldest and best of 
[books. The history of creation is said, by Strabo, 
I to have been handed down to the Egyptians by 
a Chaldean shepherd; and its superiority to all 
|other books is proven by the one important cir- 
'cumstance of its influence in civilizing mankind. 
Its doctrines are infinitely superior to those of 
the Mahometan Koran, and of the Talmud of 
the rabbis. The Bible inculcates universal char- 
ity, which word signifies, in the original, Love. 
To say nothing of the glorious principle of love, 
the laws which it inculcates are, at the same 
time, the most lenient and powerful. Human 
laws are founded upon them; but they are like 
the rays of light, compared with the sources 
from whence they spring. On the sacred page 
of the Bible, we find woman elevated to her proper dignity; but, 
among those nations where it is not read, woman is the drudge, 
and man the tyrant. 

The light of learning and wisdom flourishes where the Bible is 
read; but at its boundary commences the night of darkness and 
superstition. It has illuminated the world of literature and science, 
and cast a halo of glory around the atmosphere of intellect. It 
smiles on the calm and sunny scenes of life, and gilds the evening 
skies of the faithful in the dark hour of death. What the compass 
is to the mariner, the Bible is to the world. It teaches the king 
in the government of his empire, and the peasant in the tilling of 
his field. It proposes reward to virtue, and punishment to vice. 
It interests equally the brilliant intellect and the humble capacity. 
All that is good, grand and sublime is contained within it. Many 
cannot relish it because their taste is perverted; and many reject 
it from prejudice and ignorance of its value. To understand the 
Bible is at once to be introduced to a high source of enjoyment — the 
highest source on earth. When I hear a man exclaiming against 
the Bible, I cannot refrain from taxing his mind with ignorance. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 30] 

If you are a literary character, and wish to behold elegance, 
perspicuity and taste, turn over the leaves of the sacred book. 
Are you pleased with poetry? You have at once an inexhaustible 
fountain. You have beautiful scenery, sparkling imagery, and 
ideas clothed in sublimity of language. It contains numerous 
specimens of the angelic lyre; and I doubt whether there is such 
a field for the poet in the world. The poet who draws his scenes 
from the Bible never can fail to please: his writings are always 
new. Are you pleased with the thunders of eloquence.'' Here is 
another inexhaustible source. Some passages of Scripture are 
irresistible. What can be more grand and sublime than David's 
description of the appearance of the Most High? " He bowed 
the heavens also, and came down, and darkness was under his 
feet: he rode upon a cherub, and did fly; and he was seen upon 
the wings of the wind." Do you ask for more such passages? I 
could quote a volume; but let the description which the prophet 
Habakkuk gives of the grandeur of God sufKce: "Before him 
went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet; he 
stood and measured the earth; he beheld and drove asunder the 
nations: the everlasting mountains were scattered ; the perpetual 
hills did bow ; his ways are everlasting." 

It was such eloquence that made Felix tremble on his throne. 
But poetry and eloquence are not the only beauties of the Bible. 
We there find sound science and philosophy; there we find history 
the most perfect; and there, too, we have the biography of many 
great and learned men. In the Bible we have the history of him 
who groaned on Calvary. From that sacred summit a flood of 
light broke forth upon the world. It was the dawn of redemption ! 
Superstition fled, affrighted, before the glorious appearance of 
Christianity, and the church of the living God arose on the ruins 
of the heathen altar. The automatons of pagan idolatry tumbled 
to the dust, and the false deities perished on Olympus. That 
glorious gospel, which effected this great work, is contained within 
the Bible. Like the rainbow which is hung out in the heavens, it 
was sent as a token that God would be remindful of us. Glorious 
token! I rejoice when I read it; and I would recommend it to 
all my fellow-travellers to the grave. The waves of time are rolling 
on to sweep us away; and, as we pass through the dark vale of 
death, the light of Calvary will illuminate our path to the mansions 
above. Darkness and death are horrific to the lonely mind; but 
the Bible will overcome those terrors, and infuse a calm serenity 
in the darkest hour of existence. 



302 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



t. ^aul at Slt[itns 



He stood before the assembled throng, 

The glory of their age; 
The sons of science and of song, 

The heathen, saint and sage. 

Upon the grave of Greece he stood, 
And held the chastening rod; 

To preach, baptized in sacred blood, 
The Gospel of his God. 

Unawed in A then 's halls of fame. 

His glorious accents rung; 
The temple trembled at the name 

Of Jesus, from his tongue. 

The fanes of proud philosophy 
Were crumbling in his sight; 

While o'er the world of liberty, 
Shone Bethlem's star of light. 

The sages listened to the word, 
By heathen hearts abhoiTed; 

And trembled as they leaned and heard 
The glory of the Lord. 

The ancient idol's hour had come, 

To crumble and decay; 
The Delphic oracle was dumb, 

The priestess passed away. 

A suffering Saviour's love was told, 

His banner was vinfurled; 
Redemption's record was unrolled 

Around a dying world. 

Where clouds upon Olympus rise, 
And rolled the thunderer's tones: 

The Grecian gods forsook the skies. 
And left their golden thrones. 

On that benighted nation rose. 
More blest than learning's light; 

The Star the shouting shepherds chose 
To shine upon their night. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 303 

Heiil! happy hour, when to the world 

The Gospel shall be given; 
When vice shall be by virtue hurled, 

And hope shall dwell on heaven ! 

When Turk and Tartar shall atone, 

Befoi'e the power above; 
The ^thiop and the Arab own 

A Saviour's lasting love ! 

Hail! glorious hour, when all mankind 

Shall bow beneath his nod; 
And in one faith, and with one mind, 

Shall feel the grace of God. 



t li)ing Mtkl 

The young man, who was the subject of the following poetical lines, I knew when I 
was at the University, where he was considered a youth of splendid acquirements and 
brilliant talents. He read Paine and Voltaire, and, unfortunately, imbibed their opinions 
and believed in their annihilating doctrines. I often remonstrated with him, but, being 
superior to me in intellect, he laughed me to scorn, while he ridiculed Christianity, the 
glory of the world. All ! said I, your doctrine may do to live with, but it will not do in 
the awful hour of death, when the greedy grave opens before you. "Should you live 
longer than I," returned the young man, " I will show you how a philosopher can die ; 
or as you term me, a skeptic." Poor fellow! he little thought that I should live to wit- 
ness his death, one of the most horrible and heart-rending scenes that I ever beheld, and 
I sincerely hope that I may never witness such another. Oh ! his agonizing look is now 
before me, and his groans of penitence and terror, of hopeless misery and remorse, still 
grate in my ears ! God grant, that when the things of life are fading from my view, and 
the vista of the future is opening before me, that the sun of my existence may go down 
without a cloud, aiid tliat I may go to the grave in the perfect faith of the Gospel, which 
was instilled into my mind at my pious and affectionate mother's knee. God grant that I 
may never die the death of the Deist, and that I may never know the horrors of my 
'■friend and fellow-student, who became not only a Deist but an Atheist, and who proved 
th* fact, that " with the talents of an angel a man may be a fool." 

I SAW him in the bloom of youth, 

Ere he had felt affliction's rod; 
He spurned the sacred Book of Truth — 

The glorious Gospel of our God; 
And scorned the Almighty Power above. 

Whose eye creation's scope may scan; 
And read the source of hate or love. 

Within the heart of thankless man. 

To him a gracious God had given 

The gift of genius to survey 
The wondrous works of earth and heaven, 

Spread out in beautiful array; 



304 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

But all! Creation, to his sight, 
Was but a wild, a rude romance, 

Sprung from the realms of rayless night, 
By dark and undesigning chance. 

He saw the charming season change, 

And flowers bloom and blush for man; 
But in all nature's radiant range. 

The Mighty Mind he could not scan; 
Each spire of grass, each being, born, 

Should have convinced a mind so wise; 
And yet, he even laughed to scorn, 

A suffering Saviour's sacrifice. 

I saw the dying Deist roll 

Upon an agonizing bed. 
Dread horrors harrowed up his soul, 

His eyeballs started from his head; 
With streaming eyes, I saw him stretch 

His impious hands to heaven in prayer; 
"Save! save! Oh! save!" he cried, "a wretch, 

Whose soul is shrouded in despair!" 

Death's darkest angel o'er him waved 

His wings to waft his soul away; 
Rolling upon his bed, he raved. 

And wept, and prayed for one more day! 
Philosophy — thou fool! say, where 

Was now thy sweet consoling power? 
Where was thy balm for his despair. 

In dissolution's awful hour? 

I saw him gathered to the grave, 

In Christian holiness unborn; 
He died cold skepticism's slave. 

All unfoi'given and forlorn; 
With genius worthy heaven's abode. 

But with a hoiieless heart of pride; 
Rent by the awful wrath of God, 

The poor unhappy Deist died! 

What madness 'tis in man to mar 

The joys which God has kindly given. 
And blot out Bethlehem's beauteous star, 

Whose light illumes our path to heaven! 
'Tis vain to strive — no power may stay 

The will and pleasure of our Lord; 
Hell's deep, dark dungeons must obey. 

And heaven and earth receive his word. 



Iial0g«e 011 Jitmmt piippcss. 




ENTEE FRANK AND ROBERT, MEETING. 

OBERT. '-Well, Frank, do you still persist in 
Ljour philosophy of human happiness?" 

Frank, (putting his fingers to his nose in a 
quizzical manner) "Perhaps you mean, my dear 
Ifellow, my fool-osophy." 

Robert. "Right, Frank, ha! ha! ha! the word 
fool-osophy would suit many doctrines of the 
present day, as well as your notion of placing 
human happiness in external things. I heard 
you contend the other day that a poor man can- 
not be happy." 

Frank. "And I still contend that without 
wealth; without the means of obtaining the luxu- 
ries of life, the sum of human happiness is small." 
Robert. " You are wrong, my dear friend. 
True happiness dwells in the mind and not in 
extraneous things. A contented mind is always happy." 

Frank. " But I tell you, Robert, what the world, or what every 
body says, must be so." 

Robert. "There you are wrong also, Frank." 
Frank. " Explain yourself, if you please." 
Robert. "The opinions of the world are often fallacious. For 
example, if you were to slay a man you would be denounced by 
the world as a murderer ; while Napoleon, who immolated a million 
of men on the altar of his ambition, is held up by the same 
world as a great man." 

Fi-ank. " Well, well, that is an isolated case." 
Robert. "No, I will give you another specimen of the world's 
fool-osophy. If T challenge you to combat, and either of us should 
refuse to fight, the world would denounce him who refused as a 
coward; but should we fight and one fall, the other would be exe- 
crated as a murderer." 

Frank. " But what has this to do with the subject?" 
39 



306 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Robert. " Nothing further than to show you that the world does 
not always judge correctly of right and wrong." 

Frank. "But, properly speaking, is there a right and a wrong? 
May they not each of them be as Brutus said virtue was — a name ?" 

Robert. "No, my dear Frank, a rose by any other name may 
smell as sweet, as Shakspeare has said ; but there is as positive a 
distinction between virtue and vice, or between right and wrong, 
as there is between light and darkness." 

Frank. " Can you prove the assertion?" 

Robert. "1 can. Did you ever give a part of your purse to any 
sick or suffering fellow-creature, who, by misfortune, had been 
reduced to poverty?" 

Frank. "I have." 

Robert. "Did you not feel happy in your mind thus to have it in 
your power to relieve a fellow-creature?" 

Frank. "I did." 

Robert. "Well, then, you did what was right; because aright 
action never leaves a sting. Did you ever disobey your parents 
by not going to Sunday School, or by breaking the Sabbath?" 

Frank, (hesitates) " Well I " 

Robert. " Confess your faults like an honest man." 

Frank. " I have done so in days past." 

Robert. "Did you not feel wretched in having done so?" 

Frank. "I did." 

Robert. " Well, then, you did what was wrong; because a wrong 
action ever makes us miserable." 

Frank. (Smiling) "Ah, ha! I begin to think you are right in 
that matter, and that it is no fool-osophy." 
Enter Henry, musing. 

Henry. " Well, well, after all my struggles, I am the happiest dog 
alive. I have won the heart, the hand, ay, and the purse, too, of the 
loveliest in the land, and declare myself the happiest dog alive." 

Robert. "What, Henry about to commit matrimony!" 

Frank, (putting his fingers to his nose) " Oh! no, he's not going 
in for matrimony, but for a matter-of-money, and he's the happiest 
dog alive." 

Robert. "Let him take care that he does not get a Tartar." 

Frank. " What need he care if gets cream of tartar, so that he has 
plenty of that shining stuff, to which the world pays its homage." 

Henry. " You're right, Frank, give me plenty of money, and 
what care I for the world? I can command every thing, and even 
genius will humble itself before me." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 307 

Robert. " You are wrong, you cannot command virtue, without 
which there is no real happiness. A storm at sea, or a fire at 
night, may, in one hour, blast the rich man's happiness; while 
that of the poor man, who possesses a virtuous heart, is even by 
death increased and rendered everlasting. Did you ever see a 
pious, and, consequently, a truly happy man die?" 

Henry. " I have read of the last moments of Addison, who sent 
for his infidel son-in-law to come and see how calmly and how 
happy a Christian would die." 

Robert. "Yes, he was an example of a truly happy man. He 
had lived a virtuous and happy life, and in death he was happy. 
Suppose, Frank, that his happiness had been placed in wealth 
alone? Would the presence of death have increased it?" 

Frank. " Ah, Robert, to be serious, I must confess that you are 
too hard for me there." 

Henry. " I believe I cannot answer that, either." 

Robert. " Well, my friends, in the pursuit of happiness we pur- 
sue the phantoms of life, as children do butterflies or bubbles — 
their glories are gone the moment that we grasp them. We 
foolishly think that so much wealth or fame, or some other bauble, 
would render us completely happy, but the charm disappears the 
moment we acquire it. And thus it is with every thing in life, but 
virtue." 

Frank. " Your language carries conviction with it. I have 
long sought happiness in the bubbles of the world, and, as you 
say, I found they burst at the moment I seized them." 

Robert. "And you have felt an aching void in your heart." 

Frank. " I have," 

Henry. " Well, Robert, tell us how we shall acquire that happi- 
ness which will be lasting." 

Robert. "Let the Bible be your guide; practice its golden pre- 
cepts; let virtue have possession of all your heart, and never let 
your conscience reproach you with a dishonorable or wicked 
action. Walk so before God and man, that the arrow of envy 
shall fall harmless at your feet. Do unto others as you would have 
others do to you, and believe me, you will be happy in this world, 
and when the dread summons shall come, you will gather up your 
feet and go down to the grave in peace." 

Frank. " But, my dear fellow, how is it that many men, of the 
greatest minds that ever shed light upon the world and dignified 
and adorned humanity, have been the most skeptical, and foremost 
in repudiating the doctrines which are taught us in the Bible?" 



308 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Robert. "Ah! Frank, in nine cases out often, great men 
become skeptics through pride, the pride of being singular. Look 
at Voltaire. His very language breathes pride. He said that the 
Christian religion required twelve men to establish it, and he would 
show the World that one man could put it down. But when death 
stared him in the face, how did he die? Go read the Abbe Ba- 
ruel's account of it— it was horrible in the extreme, notwithstanding 
the fact, that Mirabeau, D'Alembert, Diderot, and others, en- 
deavored to encourage him to hold on to his opinions. Great 
minds are often very eccentric." 

Henry. " But you must recollect, Robert, that all skeptics have 
not died, as you say Voltaire died. Hume, the great historian of 
England died — I was going to say, like a philosopher, but he 
did not— he died playing cards and cracking jokes, declaring to 
the last, that he was going into, as he came from, nothing, and 
that he was resolved to enjoy the last moment of life." 

Robert. " Well, Henry, with men of such prejudiced minds as 
that of Hume, there are several things you must consider. What- 
ever, through pride and obstinacy, we wish to believe, we believe 
readily; and, if it be wrong, we imbibe it without an effort. Mark 
a child, how quick it will catch any thing evil, and with what 
tenacity it will hold on to it. I have known a man, who was given 
to lying, wlio told a story of two dogs that fought until they ate 
each other up all but the tails, aud he told it so often, that he finally 
and firmly believed that it was a fact, and would have been willing 
to swear to it. Thus might Hume have become wedded to the 
doctrine of annihilation." 

Henry. "May not those who teach religious doctrines have 
become wedded to them in the same manner?" 

Robert. "No, for this reason: all nature cries aloud against the 
doctrine of annihilation, and is full of proof that there is a God, 
from whom comes every good and perfect gift." 

Frank. " What are the proofs?" 

Robert. " In the first place, you know that wherever we see 
design we know there is intelligence; and you need but look at 
your hand, to find positive proof of a God. Man, with all his 
mechanical genius, has never made any thing so simple, that was 
capable of admitting of such a variety of motions. Every joint 
in the fingers is necessary, and were one finger taken away, the 
hand would lose half its usefulness. Examine your hand. You 
can pick up the finest needle; you can wield that mighty instru- 
ment, the pen ; you can bend a bow, fire a gun, play upon a 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 309 

musical instrument, lift heavy weights, use all manner of tools, 
and perform a thousand evolutions, which it would be impossible 
to do if the hand had not been designed as it is. It is not only a 
proof of the existence of a Superior Intelligence, but that the 
Deity intended man to erect the temple of his renown and happi- 
ness. So long as man follows the dictates of that Sublime Being, 
so long is he happy." 

Frank. "Well, where are the proofs that man will not be anni- 
hilated, when he departs from this world?" 

Robert. "They are more numerous than the stars which glitter 
in the fields of space. Look around you, and nature will reveal 
many emblems of man's mortality and resurrection. Man has 
been denominated a worm, and the transformation of the cater- 
pillar is equally as strange as the resurrection of man. Take the 
silkworm, for example. It comes forth into the world, like man, 
a tiny, helpless worm; it feeds, it grows; is now sick, now well; 
and as it approaches to maturity, it gives a loose to its animal ap- 
petite and revels in luxury, like man. But, unlike man, it prepares 
for the tomb. It lies in its tomb but a short time, ere the change 
is effected; the tomb, or cocoon, opens, and instead of a worm, 
it comes forth a beautiful butterfly, clothed in white. Every tree, 
every rose-bush blooms and dies, and blooms again. Every thing 
is undergoing perpetual change and renewal, and why should not 
man, the noblest creature that God has made.''" 

Frank. " Indeed, Robert, I can truly say, ' almost thou persuadest 
me to be a Christian;' for I begin to think that that which never 
did man any harm must do him good." 

Henry. "But stop; has not religion been the cause of much 
bloodshed in the world .^" 

Robert. "There, my dear fellow, you make a stumbling block 
that thousands of others have made. The blood, you speak of, 
was shed from a mistaken notion of religion. I do not subscribe 
to every doctrine or dogma that is taught; but there is one thing 
which cannot be denied, and that is, that Christianity has lessened 
ignorance and superstition ; it has made society better, by teaching 
men to do good for evil, and to do unto others as they would have 
others to do to them, instead of demanding an eye for an eye." 

Frank. " Oh! what a glorious world this were, if all men would 
sincerely practice these precepts!" 

Robert. "The really good do, and if others become heartless 
professors and shed blood, the evil should not be charged to the 
good. I would advocate Christianity for its benefit in this world, 



310 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

if I were certain there is no hereafter. Look at France, during 
the revolution of 1789, when all piety was eschewed, and even 
the Sabbath abolished ! There was an evidence of what the evil 
passions of men will do, when unrestrained by the gentle spirit of 
Christianity." 

Frank. "Do you not believe that many doubt who profess to 
believe in Christianity?" 

Robert. " There is not a doubt of that. We all doubt, more or 
less; for if we fully and firmly believed that if we were to die 
to-night, our doom would be misery, we should instantly strive 
to avert the fate. Our happiness in this world, I believe, is just 
in proportion as we are conscious that we are doing our duty 
towards God and man. We cannot be happy when conscience 
is continually upbraiding us with not doing our duty. The hap- 
piest man I have ever seen, was one who appeared to be void of 
offence both towards God and man; and, indeed, how could he 
be else than happy; for, when he laid down at night, his conscience 
approved his conduct; his spirit was calm; and he felt that if he 
should die before morning, no evil could befall him." 

Henry. " I believe you are right, Robert, for once at an election 
I suffered myself to drink too much, and in recovering, never had I 
such horrors of mind. I wished myself dead, and yet feared to die." 

Robert. " Yes, you did wrong, and conscience inflicted the 
penalty. So you will ever find that misery follows a wrong action, 
while happiness is the reward of a good one. That law is as fixed 
and certain as any that govern the motions of the heavenly bodies, 
and may be demonstrated with as much certainty as any problem 
in Euclid." 

Frank. " Then, from all you have said, I should think it best to 
believe in Christianity, at all hazards." 

Robert. " Certainly, for this reason, though it is not original. If 
you believe and find nothing after death, you will have nothing to 
lose; but if you do not believe, and should find a reality beyond 
the grave, you will have every thing to lose." 

Henry. " That is very true ; but there is one thing which puzzles 
me. Pray, how is it that there are so many Scriptures in the world, 
besides our own? There is the Talmud, of the Jews; the Koran, 
of the Turks; the Zend Avesta, of the Persians; the Hindoos 
have their Scriptures, and the Chinese have the works of Confucius, 
which they religiously believe in." 

Robert. "Ah! Henry, this is the old cry of the skeptics; but 
the nations you have mentioned, are very little better or more 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD, 311 

enlightened than Heathens, notwithstanding all the flummery 
about the Chinese. No discovery can be made, but immediately 
it is said that the Chinese had made the discovery centuries before, 
when it is notorious that they scarcely know any thing more 
about science, than a pig does about poetry, politics, or political 
economy. Barbarians, who as readily worship stalks and stones as 
any thing else, may not be presumed to be judges of any doctrine 
that the designing may impose upon them. Mahomet, one of 
the most ridiculous impostors that ever attempted to shackle the 
mind of man, was under the necessity of propagating his doctrine 
with the sword, the very idea of which is enough to condemn it 
at once." 

Henry. " Robert, from what I can understand of your logic, the 
only true source of happiness is to do what we believe to be right, 
towards God and man." 

Robert. " Yes, to carry a conscience void of offence. As I said 
before, if you do a wrong act, you as certainly suffer for it as that 
you commit the offence." 

Frank. " Well, Robert, I think I could do what I think is right; 
but to do good for evil is a little beyond human nature. Pope says, 
' whatever is, is right.' " 

Robert. " Yes, but he did not mean in the evil conduct of man, 
but in the order of Providence — whatever is, in the glorious con- 
struction of the universe, is right. To do good for evil, I must 
confess, is difficult to the heart in its evil condition; but no sooner 
does it partake of the divine influence of the grace of God, than 
it feels an inclination to forgive injuries; to love its neighbor as 
itself; and to do good for evil. Indeed, Frank, if you wish to 
overcome your enemy and melt his heart to kindness, there is no 
readier way than to do him a good act for an evil one. If he has 
the least spark of generosity, on witnessing your noble conduct, 
he will grasp your hand in friendship." 

Heni'y. " Yes, I have witnessed such a scene, and never can 
forget it. And now, my friend, I believe with you, that virtue is 
the only true source of happiness, and henceforth I will sincerely 
endeavor to put in practice the precepts you have mentioned. If 
I but do unto others as I would have others do unto me, I shall, 
no doubt, be a happier man." 

Frank. " [ shall endeavor to do the same." 

Robert. "Good! Stick to your determination, and be assured 
that you will never regret the step you have taken. Adieu." 



'S\2 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 



%.hhiBB to l^t 3&un. 

Empress of night, sweet messenger of eve, 
Pale Luna, thou, whose silver brows o'erhang 
The sloping woodland, and the mountain stream, 
Thou full faced goddess from behind the earth; 
Stealing from Titan his Promethean fire, 
To light thy lamp, when at the midnight hour 
Thou art still wheehng round this ponderous ball, 
Lighting the wanderer on his lonesome way: 
Thy beauties now I sing. Think me not vain. 
If this my humble muse, essay to twine 
One wreath of bays around thy polished brows, 
What time thou shone upon my evening path. 
When I, a lover, wandered far from home. 
Along the stream, nor dreamt of time's decay. 
Till down the west thy airy jiath was seen 
And bright Aurora shed her orange beams. 
Think me not false, if I could love thee well, 
And tune thy praise on this my simple lyre; 
For oft hast thou, when all mankind was wrapped 
In Morpheus' arms, strayed at the silent hour, 
My sole companion, down the peaceful glade; 
And when mine eyes were weary of thy gaze. 
Thou wouldst descend, and in some Naiad cave. 
Beneath the wave, I still beheld thy form. 

thou wilt ne'er forsake poetic shades! 

For thou art pleased to hear the tuneful Nine, 
When at the midnight hour, the echoing hills 
Resound with joy, the sweet romantic strains. 
And thou hast listened, when Siderial spheres 
All sang together, of the wondrous love 
Of thy great Architect, the hand divine. 

1 cannot talk like sage philosopher. 
And tell of Jupiter and his four moons, 
Of Mars and Venus, Saturn and his seven 
Bright satellites, which constantly attend; 
Nor have I yet a Newton's eye to see 

Ten thousand worlds fill up the realms of space — 

Nor yet a Herschel's, who with magic glance 

Drew from obscurity another ball. 

And named it Georgium Sidus. I have not 

The daring genius of the Mantuan bard. 

Nor of the bard of Avon, who searched out 

The deep recess of human nature, and 

Explained the darkling subtlety of man. 

And I have not a Thracian lyre to make 

The mountains weep, nor one like that of old, 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 313 

To bid the Theban dome descend, or snatch 

From hell the tender lover, or subvert 

The laws of nature, taming savage beasts, 

As told by him, the Cheroneau sage, 

The man of candor and sublimity. 

I cannot do all this, nor yet can I 

Belch out the thunder of Demosthenes; 

Or flash conviction like a Cicero, 

In eloquence of thunder. Yet I can 

Sing thy friendly nature, thy influence mild; 

How thou canst make the tides obey thy will, 

Nor lash tliem like veiin Xerxes did of old. 

I love thee for thy mild and gentle reign. 

And much I mourn thy absence, when the earth, 

Ambitious like its natives, courts the sun, 

Because a brighter object, and involves. 

Thy form in night's eternal solemn gloom. 

Fain would I have thee like the evening star. 

The fair-haired Venus, spurning earth's domain, 

Like some coquette for ever shining gay, 

But not like her, importunate and vain. 

Go lovely Moon, go take thy mazy round. 

And then replenish at Sol's burning shrine. 

To light me on my way. Empty thy horns, 

And take, like me at Helicon, thy draught. 

Until thy face no darkness shedl present. 

And then shall she, who nightly with me roves, 

Hail thy return with gladness and with joy; 

Till this proud harp shall catch Miltonian fire. 

And thou, and Ellen, wake my noblest song. 



Like rainbow rays, that charm the gazer's eye. 
When the bright sun shines on a darken 'd sky, 
And in a moment disappear from sight; 
Like brilliant meteors, on a moonless night, 
That dazzle for an instant and decay. 
Leaving a deeper darkness on their way; 
Are the vain hopes of man's ambition blind, 
That, dazzling, die in darkness on the mind: 
Too late he finds, upon his lonely way. 
Like IGNIS FATuii, they lead astray; 
Too late, alas! his soul is doom'd to find, 
They were but bubbles, meteors of the mind. 

40 



Clje C0ttrt5|ip mtsm C|e |iitm |ng. 



Or all the ghosts that ever haunted man, 
Of all the goblins human eyes e'er scan ; 
Of all the infernal evil spirits curst, 
Sure ardent spirits are by far the worst. 
Of all the reptiles that on earth now are. 
The dreadful stiH-worm is most fatal far ; 
That serpent's yenom, there's no doubt of late. 
Was in the apple Eve and Adam ate. 



HE substance, in part, of this true story, I ob- 
Itained from my venerable friend, Dr. John W. 
Dorsey, of Maryland, and the hero of it was a 
lieutenant under the brave Commodore Truxton. 
It exemplifies the influence of the rum jug, in 
not only blasting moral character, plundering the 
purse, destroying health and happiness, and in 
the production of crime and wretchedness; but 
in debarring men from the accomplishment of 
designs which might eventuate in an increase of 
happiness and respectability. 

Lieutenant Granville belonged to the squadron 
of Commodore Truxton, and a braver man never 
awoke the thunders of freedom on the mighty 
deep. Not only did he possess the animal qual- 
ity of bravery, but he was endowed with higher 
attributes of the mind; he was graced with talents that would have 
shone brilliantly in the halls of legislation, or the councils of his 
country. Elegantly educated, and having what Horace calls cacO' 
elhes loquendi, or itch for talking, he would have distinguished him- 
self in the forum, as well as in the field; in the senate, as well as 
on the sea. 

But, alas! our hero contracted a love for liquor at a very early 
age. We all remember the period when the custom of sweeten- 
ing the morning drarn was universal, and the youngest member of 
ihe family was entitled to his share. It was thus, in childhood, 




WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 315 

that Granville contracted the habit, which grew with his growth, 
and strengthened with his strength. His society was universally 
courted, on account of his droll ways and humorous pranks, as 
well as his witty sayings, by which he often "set the table in a 
roar." 

The lieutenant was not wealthy, and he often said that the easi- 
est way to acquire wealth was to bear down upon and board some 
rich craft; by which he meant, to marry some rich lady. He had 
made several attempts at courtship, but had failed, on account of 
the unfortunate habit to which he was addicted. 

It was the delight of the officers, on board of the ship, when 
seated over a flowing can, at the evening hour, to listen to the 
stories of Lieutenant Granville's courtships, which were related in 
so quizzical a manner, and contained so many ludicrous incidents, 
that all hands were thrown into convulsive laughter ; for he soon 
collected a crowd around him. 

"Well, Granville," said the Surgeon, one evening, when a party 
of officers were seated together, on deck, "you have never given 
us the history of that courtship of yours." 

"Sure enough," returned Granville, with a quizzical leer of his 
eye, " and a prettier or more trim built craft I never ran along side 
of in my life. Oh! but you had ought to have seen her rigged 
out in her flying jib and spanker, with her streamers flying, and 
everything in ship-shape; and you'd have longed to come to, and 
cast anchor along side, as 1 did." 

"But go on with the story," roared Lieutenant Bradley. 

" Well, you see, I obtained, from the Secretary of the Navy, a 
furlough to go to the East Indies; and when I returned to Wash- 
ington, I resolved to cruize about, in hopes I might fall in with 
some trim built craft, and take her as a prize. Well, you see, I 
had'nt cruised long, before I heard of a rich young widow, who 
lived about eight miles from Washington. Clear the deck for ac- 
tion, says I, I'll board her at all hazards. So I hired a horse; 
hoisted sail, and how far do you think I got, the first day?" 

"To the widow's house, of course," answered the Surgeon. 

"Deuce a bit of it. Three miles brought me to the tavern sign 
of General Washington, where I hove to; dropped anchor; got 
drunk, and staid all night. The next morning I got up, and piped 
all hands to splice the m^in brace ahoy with a little of the Boston 
particular. Well, you see, when the landlord made his appear- 
ance, I took a sneezer — ordered my horse — put out again ; and, 
in less than four miles, ran foul of another tavern, the sign of 



316 WRITINGS OB' THE MILFORD BARD. 

which was a good woman without a head; you know all women 
are good without heads, or tongues, I should say. Here I an- 
chored of course ; stowed away my breakfast, and got drunk again ; 
and there, you see, was one drunk on top o' the other. — Well, 
you see, about five o'clock, I took a fresh departure for the 
widow's, and in a long lane was thrown overboard, by a tremend- 
ous surge, into the fence corner, where I lay at anchor until morn- 
ing. When I awoke, I saw nothing but a chimney; it snowed 
all night; I was covered about two feet, and my breath formed 
this chimney." 

"Well, what then?" enquired one of the officers, laughing. 

"Why, after some difficulty, I regained my feet, and looking 
round, I discovered a cabin, in an old field hard by, and feeling 
like a man o' war after a hard battle, I made sail and hauled into 
port, where I was admitted by the old woman and her little 
daughter. Madam, said I, I am a poor shipwrecked mariner. I 
have been hanging to some fence rails all night, during the pelting 
of the pitiless storm, and I beg of you a blanket to roll myself in 
before the fire, as I am nearly frozen to death; and if I had a little 
rum, it would assist in thawing me the sooner; when — great guns ! 
the old woman said that she never kept the article. Here was a 
broadside that made my timbers shiver again ; for, though I was 
as wet as a rat, I was as dry as a powder-horn. But to my inex- 
pressible joy, her little daughter said, as she started up from her 
seat, 'mother, I will go to old Tom Bovvlin's and get some rum 
for the gentleman.' 

"And, sure enough, in a short time, here she came with a jug 
full — God bless her! — of which I drank freely, and in three hours 
after, half seas over, put out to sea, and steered for the widow's." 

"But why didn't you carry your liquor on board," enquired a 
midshipman, "as you were so often on short allowance?" 

"May be I did. I saw, in the old woman's cupboard, one of 
these thin eight ounce medicine phials; so I bought it of her, and 
filled it with the Boston particular, by way of keeping my spirits 
up, when popping the question to the widow; for I didn't expect 
to get any there, and it wouldn't do even to mention rum." 

" Well, go on with the story." said the Surgeon, " you got 
there ?" 

" Yes, with the phial of rum in my jjocket, I dropped anchor, 
after being politely towed into the parlor by the fair young widow. 
Oh ! but how it would have made your mouths water, just to have 
seen that (rim built craft, with her curly streamers aflying, and her 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 317 

two bright port holes flashing fire at you at every glance ! The 
very first broadside from her eyes, shivered my heart to atoms." 

" Go on, go on," said several voices. 

" Well, as I was saying, I was about half seas over, three sheets 
in the wind and the other shaking, and I couldn't have walked a 
plank to save my soul. My tongue was so thick, that I couldn't 
have spoken the words, three thin saplings, if my life had been 
forfeited, and to hide matters from my charmer, I took hold of the 
chairs and tables, when I moved about. After getting thoroughly 
thawed, I cleared the deck for action, and made preparation for 
popping the awful question. I had to keep a look out that I didn't 
break the bottle in my pocket, for I knew that if I got a lee lurch, 
the bottle might go by the board and betray me. This I dreaded; 
for I was getting on swimmingly. So I watched my opportunity; 
rose up gently see-sawing, like a ship in the trough of the sea, 
and held on to the back part of the chair. 

"Madam — madam," said I, " having heard of your fame; good- 
ness of heart; and above all, your bank stock — I — I mean your 
beauty; I have visited you for the purpose of asking you whether 
you would accept of one of Commodore Trux — hie — Trux — hie 
— one of Commodore Truxton's Lieutenants, as a companion 
for life ?" 

"Well, what do you think I got?" 

"Why, she struck her colors, of course, and surrendered," 
answered a midshipman, with a horse-laugh. 

"I'll tell you what I got. I got a flat, without a paddle to steer 
home with." 

" What then ?" enquired the Surgeon, as all hands burst into a 
loud roar of laughter. 

"Well, I followed the advice of the brave Lawrence, and didn't 
give up the ship. But dang it, what a blunder I made with her 
bank stock! She smiled and simpered, and invited me to dinner. 
Thinks I, my honey, I'll give you another broadside, before I sur- 
render. So when she went out to tell the servant to brino- in 
dinner, I whipt the eight ounce phial out of my pocket, and took 
a little comfort; but, by the hickory spoons, she came near catch- 
ing me in the act." 

"But the dinner, the dinner; give us the dinner," roared out 
one of the officers. 

" Well, you see, another drink made me glorious ; and, as good 
luck would have it, there wasn't a soul at the table but her lady- 
ship and your humble servant; so I had a first-rate opportunity to 



318 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



pop the question again. But I thought I would flourish awhile, 
by way of coaxing her over; for young widows are wonderfully 
susceptible to the tender passion, and the last drink had made me 
quite eloquent, save that my tongue was rather thick, and an 
occasional hiccup spoiled some of my most sublime efforts. 

"Madam," said I, giving her what I thought a soul-searching 
glance, though no doubt my eyes were red and sleepy, — "Madam, 
this fork I hold in my hand, is not more firmly planted in the 
breast of this chicken, than is the dart of love, shot from your 
beau — beau — hie — beautiful eyes, fixed in my heart." 
She smiled bewitchingly, and encouraged, I proceeded : 
"Dearest Madam, there is nothing I prize so highly as your 
bank — I mean your beauty; and if there is anything I admire 
more than your pers — pers — personal charms, it is your money. 
I beg pardon, I mean your mental per — per — per — what was I 
saying, madam ? 

"The widow roared out in a horse-laugh, and I was so con- 
fused that, seizing one leg of the chicken with my fingers, I sunk 
down in my chair, and commenced tearing it with my teeth like a 
hungry wolf; and the truth was, I had eaten nothing since the 
day before. I fell into a perfect reverie, on the ill effects of drink- 
ing rum, and when the widow spoke, I started as if there had been 
a sudden clap of thunder; upset my plate, with two soft eggs on 
it, into my lap, over which my handkerchief was spread. To 
avoid confusion, I rolled up the handkerchief, with the soft eggs 
in it, and stowed it away in my pocket. The plate fell to the 
floor, and, striking on its edge, rolled clear round the table into 
the fire. This was too much for the gravity of the widow, and 
she broke out into another horse-laugh." 

"Well, how did you get on after that?" asked the Surgeon, 
"Bad enough, I tell you. It seemed as if everything con- 
spired against me. After my confusion was somewhat over, I 
again launched forth into praises of her beauty, preparatory to 
popping the question a second time. Seeing that her plate was 
empty, I rose up to help her to another pan of the chicken, when 
getting a lee lurch, I attempted to lay hold of the table, but missing- 
it, I grasped the table-cloth, and should have fallen sprawling in the 
floor, besides dragging everything from the table, had not the ser- 
vant, a large, fat colored woman, who had just come in, caught 
me in her arms. T shuddered, for had I fallen, I should have in- 
evitably broken the bottle in my pocket." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 319 

"Capital! Excellent! Well done!" cried several, while an- 
other loud laugh arose from the amused officers. 

"Go on, Granville," said the Surgeon, "the denouement will 
be rich, I've no doubt." 

"It may be rich to you," continued Granville, "but it was poor 
fun to me, for so confused was I, that I staggered across the room ; 
sunk down on one of these cane-bottom chairs, and my coat-tail 
being under me — Oh ! decanters, I broke to smash the frail bottle 
in my pocket, and the liquor went trickling down, through the 
bottom of the chair, to the floor. This was more than I could 
bear, and my eyes glared upon the confused widow as if she had 
been a ghost, while the servant stood tittering at my dilemma. I 
would rather have faced British cannon at that moment, for I knew 
not what to do, or what to say. But my calamities were not at an 
end, for to clap the climax, and hide my confusion, I drew out the 
handkerchief, forgetful of what had occurred, and applied it to my 
face. Oh ! Jupiter, the first slap filled my eyes, and bedaubed my 
face all over with the yolks of the eggs, and such a looking object 
never appeared before a lady to pop the question. The widow 
rushed, laughing, into the kitchen, followed by the fat servant, 
who ever and anon turned round, rolled up the whites of her eyes, 
and shook her sides with laughter at my truly ludicrous and ridi- 
culous appearance." 

"Well, how did you come out in the end?" enquired the Sur- 
geon. 

" How did I come out? Why, I came out at the little end of 
the horn, as the saying is. I weighed anchor, and put out to sea 
as quick as my legs would let me; and from that day to this, I 
have never been on a courting cruize, and whenever I see a young 
widow, I can't help thinking of soft eggs and broken rum jugs. 
From this time, to all eternity, my advice is, to young men who 
wish to court either a young spinster or a widow, to let the rum 
jug alone ; for I have no doubt that if I had gone a sober man to 
see the widow, I might now be living in a fine house, aqd riding 
in a coach and four." 

At the conclusion of the Lieutenant's story, the officers pulled 
off their hats and gave three cheers for the courtship ; which was 
followed by a long, loud roar of laughter, 



320 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



t CatJiEhal 9JeII, 33altim0rL 



Heard at a distance on Sunday evening, while meditating on a tomb, alone, in a 
Catholic burial ground. 

How sweetly sounds that evening bell? how soothing is its toll? 
It comes like mellow music on the meditating soul; 
It speaks, as with a tongue from heaven, to every heart of care. 
And, like an angel whispering, it calls the soul to prayer. 

It speaks of Him who loved the world, of Him who deigned to give 
His blessed Son to die, that man — ungrateful man — might live; 
That glorious Son, who to mankind his gospel page unfurled, 
And hung redemption's rainbow round a dark and dying world. 

O thou, most holy, heavenly church ! at whose all-sacred shrine 
The God of heaven, in truth, pronounced devoted and divine. 
What millions in all ages since have at thy altar knelt. 
And all the luxuries of faith, of hope, and love have felt ! 

The infidel in vain may strike; in vain the fool may mock; 

In vain all opposition, too: 'tis built upon a rock; 

"The gates of hell shall not prevail " against its holy name; 

When ages, yet unknown, have passed, the church will stand the same. 

From age to age, alas! the church has been severely used. 
By persecution butchered, and by bigotry abused: 
But still she sends out from the ark of peace the gentle dove. 
And holds out to the world around the olive leaf of love. 

Ah! would that all mankind were thus inclined to live in peace! 

The heart would be a heaven on earth, the storms of strife would cease; 

The dagger would no longer drink the guiltless victim's gore, 

And every man would go in peace, ay, go and sin no more. 

happy day! it were, indeed; the angels high in heaven 
Would tune their harps of gold, and sing the truce of mercy given; 
But man, because he will not join the holy church of God, 
Gives vent to vengeance, and uplifts fell persecution's rod. 

Her doors are open unto all; the tree of life is there, 

And every one may of the fruit in rich abundance share; 

Come, one and all, a mother she will ever truly prove. 

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, her paths are peace and love. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 321 

Sweet bell, thy tongue in mournful tones speaks to my silent heart, 
And bids me to prepare, for soon I must from earth depart; 
And lie down in the grave alone, like him who slumbers here, 
And who, like me, could once in life thy mellow music hear. 

I love to muse, at evening hour, when thou art sounding far, 
And, while 1 hsten, gaze upon yon bright and blessed star; 
And think of all the happy host that dwell, ye dead, with you. 
Beyond the starry skies above— sweet evening bell, adieu! 



m\m d Cfjaritij. 

Angels of earth sent down from heaven, 

To wipe away the mourner's tear; 
Sweet ministers of mercy, given 

To soothe afflicted mortals here; 
To lessen human misery. 

And to obey our blessed Lord; 
Ye are devoted, yet are free, 

And angels' smiles are your reward. 

Ye do renounce the earth, and all 

Its Siren pleasures that betray; 
And at your Saviour's feet ye fall. 

And humbly and devoutly pray 
That He may give ye strength to bless 

The sick, and in his footsteps move; 
Thus imitating, in distress, 

His heavenly mercy and his love. 

Ye seek not wealth, ye seek not fame, 

They are a bubble and a breath; 
Ye seek a home in heaven, a name 

With angels, in the hour of death; 
To helpless man ye comfort give, 

And smooth his pathway to the sky, 
In virtue's path ye calmly live, 

To learn the lesson how to die. 

Like him who had in Bethlehem birth, 

And sin and sorrow nobly hurled; 
Who hung a rainbow round the earth, 

And saved from death a sinking world; 
Children of charity, ye seek 

The sick and suffering without price. 
Ye measure mercy to the meek, 

And oft from ruin rescue vice. 
41 



322 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Methinks the heavenly harps on high 

Will welcome you, and crowns be given, 
When ye shall seek your home on high, 

Even at the golden gates of heaven: 
Methinks the angels blest above, 

Will meet ye with a smile and nod; 
And lead ye by the cords of love, 

To the bright garden of our God. 

Oh! in that land among the blest. 

Where none may shed affliction's tears; 
Earth's angels will find glorious rest. 

Amid the march of endless years; 
When suns shall sink and stars consume, 

And skies shall pass away above; 
You, still triumphant o'er the tomb. 

Will dwell in yonder land of love. 



^ « — 



5K.eti:i}5|intiaiL 



OM! where are the friends whom in childhood I cherished, 
The good and the graceful— the gifted and brave ? 

Alas ! in a cold world they pined and have perished, 
Unpitied they sleep in the gloom of the grave. 

Or far in a foreign land lonely they wander, 
Unblest by the bosoms that beat for them here; 

Perhaps on the years that are passed they now ponder, 
And drop the sweet tribute of memory's tear. 

Alas! when I look on the scenes long departed. 
And think of the friends that so fondly I proved, 

Like Logan, a moment I mourn broken-hearted. 
Alone in the world, stripped of all that I loved. 

Oh ! the home of my heart, and the scenes of my childhood. 

I long to revisit, and love to recall. 
The village and valley, the grove and the wildwood, 

The friends and the fireside loved more than all. 

But why should I weep o'er the friends I have cherished? 

Or sigh o'er the scenes that once happiness gave? 
A few fleeting years, and I too shall have perished. 

And sleep with them all in the gloom of the grave. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 323 



Txnu m l^t leatji nf f sahdla, 



DAUGHTER OF JAMES AND ELLEN TERRY. 



On Sunday she was the pride of her father, and the joy of her mother's heart. On 
Monday the cheek which had glowed with health the day before, was blanched — she was 
dead! At that most interesting period of childhood, when the tongue is just learning to 
lisp the endearing names of father and mother, Deatli aimed his dart; and, in a few hours, 
the music of that little prattling tongue was hushed forever. Gone, forever, were all the 
bright anticipations of those who idolized her ; and oh ! how sickening is the thought that 
all we love is thus mutable and transitory? To-day we are happy in the possession of all 
that can render life desirable — the next day we are called to mourn over the desolation of 
our homes, and the ruin of all our high built hopes and holiest affections. Oh ! how 
many a heart has thus bled in anguish, when returning to their desolate homes from the 
grave, which had just closed over all they held dear on earth? But for those bruised and 
bleeding hearts there is one consolation, and only one. It is the ever-during hope of meet- 
ing the loved and lost at the golden gates of Heaven, and of dwelling together in the gar- 
den of God, where parting is no more. 

Oh ! if there is a scene below the skies, 
At which the angels weep, it is to see 
• A mother's anguish, when her infant dies; 
For there's no measure to her misery. 

To-day, methinks I see her, with her child, 

Blooming in beauty, in her blissful arms; 
To-mon-ow, in distraction, wan and wild. 

She gazes on her pale and lifeless charms; 

Or round her dying couch she fondly flies. 

Calling on Heav'n her heart's best hope to save; 

Each little art, alas ! in vain she tries, 
Then shrieks, and yields her darling to the grave. 

Wildly she marks the last, long, lingering breath. 
And the deep tides of anguish, gushing, roll; 

Oh ! mournful is that moment we call death! 
How does it harrow up a parent's soul? 

Methinks I see the sad funereal train. 

Moving, in solemn silence, to the tomb; 
The bleeding heart's deep sigh I hear again. 

Mourning, in deepest grief, a daughter's doom. 

Oh ! if there is a moment that e'er gave 

A chastening feeUng to the heart, it must 
Have been when standing by the solemn grave. 

To see our friends go down to death and dust! 



324 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Ah ! what a desolating feeling came 

O'er these sad parents, when they home return 'd? 
No little daughter lisp'd the much lov'd name 

Of Father, or of Mother — silence mourn 'd! 

In the lone chamber, where her merry voice, 
■* But yesterday, was heard with heart-felt bhss; 

She comes no more, to bid those hearts rejoice, 
And chmb the knee to ask a parent's kiss. 

Her little footstep in the hall is mute, 

Her tongue the ear, on earth, no more shall greet; 

Oh! more than lay of minstrel's love-lorn lute. 
Was to that mother's ear its music sweet ! 

Angels have borne her to the bowers of bliss, 
A happy home, not made with hands, above; 

Oh ! may her parents here prepare in this. 
To meet her in yon land of light and love ! 

To part with those we love, is keenest pain. 
But here those days of grief will soon be o'er; 

And oh ! what joy to meet that child again, 

Where none may weep, and parting is no more ! 



WRIHEN FOR THE ALBUM OF A LADY IN NEW JERSEY. 

Oh! I have sat, at midnight's solemn hour. 
Musing upon the ghttering globes, that hang, 
Like lamps suspended in the hall of heaven; 
And while, in contemplation, I surveyed 
The starry host, that wheel their ceaseless flight 
With regular precision, I have mused; 
Ay, meditated on the wondrous power — 
The grandeur and the glory of a God, 
Who is of suns and systems, and of all 
Created things, the centre and the soul, 
'Till my wrapt soul was lost in deep amaze. 

When to my mind the mighty thought came in, 
That every star, that twinkled, was a sun. 
Round which a system of huge planets moved. 
Millions of miles apart — and when I thought 
That the same God made me; ay, as I am, 
An insect in Creation's mighty plan; 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARU. 325 

I wonder 'd, while I worship 'd, at the Power, 

That is as evident ev'n in a plant, 

As in a planet; and as glorious, too, 

In the frail structure of the worm we crush. 

As in the wondrous fabric of a world. 

Oh! I have started, when upon myself 
I turned my mental eye; and strange thoughts came, 
In contemplating that immortal part 
Of man, the mind, to matter chain'd, till death 
Comes, like a friend; unbars the dungeon door. 
And sets the captive free. Why do we start. 
And tremble at his coming.' To die — it is 
As natural as birth; 'tis necessary 
That we give place to others, who come in 
This breathing world, which our forefathers gave 
To us. Then why the awful fear of death ? 
Ah! 'tis that dreadful consciousness within. 
That we have not fulfiU'd the destiny 
Which God intended; that we are unfit 
To enter at the golden gates of Heaven; 
And that we've spurn'd the ofT'i'ing of that One, 
Who hung the rainbow of Redemption round 
A dark and dying world. 

Death is no bugbear to the soul sublime. 
That, freed from human error, walks the ways 
Of innocence and virtue. To him the grave 
Hath lost its victory — death hath no sting. 
When comes the summons, he with joy obeys; 
And, like the setting sun, he leaves behind 
His golden virtues, to adorn the earth; 
While his immortal spirit is removed. 
From this cold world to the garden of his God. 



Ipnrfi of Xagan, 

The Indian Chief whose wife and children were murdered by the Americana as they 
approached the shore in a canoe. 

These hands have shed the blood of many a foe, 
And laid in death the bleeding warrior low; 
These hands still reek with noblest British blood. 
Shed o'er these plains in many a rubric flood; 
Columbia's cause has led me forth to war. 
For her I mounted on the sanguine car; 
For fair Columbia and- her warlike sires, 
I snatched the torch and lit funereal fires; 



326 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

For her I bade the streams of vengeance flow, 

Piled up the dead in heaps of slaughter 'd woe; 

Led on the ranks to gain the victor's prize, 

While many a ghost fled blood-stain 'd to the skies. 

Bade all around vindictive fury roar, 

Till bleeding heroes cover 'd all the shore. 

And now where is that bright reward of fame, 

Which every chief demands to grace his name; 

Where is that meed which heroes must allow 

To grace the bold victorious hero's brow? 

Alas! see there beside the sounding main. 

My wife and all my helpless children slain! 

With bleeding breasts they stain their native shore, 

And dream of Logan and his toils no more— 

Those sons whom I have screen'd from war's alarms 

Have robb'd my heart of all its earthly charms. 

And now not one lone drop of my blood warm 

Runs in the veins of any living form; 

By cruel men my joys and hopes have fled. 

They sleep with these, my wife and children, dead. 

O sacred wife, to thee no pow'r belongs, 

But yet thy Logan shall revenge thy wrongs; 

Thy mem'ry, my children, pangs imparts, 

Your father's friends have pierc'd your guiltless hearts; 

For this, before the setting sun I swear— 

And thou. Great Spirit, hear my humble prayer— 

Never shall Logan drop the scalping-knife 

Or tomahawk, until the victim's life 

Shall pay the ransom of those children slain, 

And this dear wife now stretched along the main; 

Ere I shall falter in the bloody deed 

O may this heart with spouting crimson bleed, 

May ghastly wounds let out my Ufe and breath, 

And seal these eyes in one eternal death; 

For this I draw the blood avenging blade 

To sweep the former friends Columbia made: 

Ne'er shall these hands support her cause again, 

Retrench her toils or lead her cruel train. 

More cruel far than Indian bosoms burn. 

For Indian warriors ne'er their friends will spurn; 

Now to the task my weary feet are borne. 

But 0, alas! for these my friends I mourn, 

No friend I have, distained with human gore. 

Their bones must bleach along this billowy shore. 

Death is no terror, yet to me belongs 

To reek my vengeance and revenge thy wrongs; 

Then without fear I yield and calmly die 

To seek my wife and children in the sky. 

Till this is gain'd my hand shall never cease, 

Nor take from foes the calumet of peace. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 327 



nnrt^e at |^a. 



As obBerved from the balcony of the Ocean House, at Lewistown, Delaware. 

As I stood on the balcony gazing afar, 
A light stream'd across like the gleam of a star; 
'Twas the light of the sun, and it broke in a blaze 
O'er the tremulous ocean, exciting amaze. 

'Tis lovely, 1 said, to the friend at my side, 
Ah! yes, he exclaimed, and I view it with pride; 
It illumines the land of the brave and the free, 
As it rises afar from the dark rolling sea. 

And mark the white sails, as they bend to the breeze. 
Returning from far, very far distant seas; 
They seem to my sight like the spirits of men. 
On eternity's ocean, in fancy we ken. 

Oh! yes, I exclaim 'd, and how blest it must be 
To ride and to rule o'er the dark rolUng sea; 
O'er which haughty England has boasted to ride, 
But who has been checked by American pride. 

Behold on Champlain brave McDonough in war, 
And see how descended the bold Briton's star; 
Ay, mark the brave Jones, when he gave them a toast, 
And allowed the bold British no longer to boast. 

Oh ! Delaware, land of the brave and the free, 
On which the sun rises from yonder dark sea; 
I love thee, for thou wert the first to proclaim 
Our freedom from slavery — freedom from shame. 

Thy chickens are brave in the field of the fight. 

Forever contending for honor and right; 

Thy daughters are fair as the lilies of yore, 

And their manners and minds ev'ry man must adore. 

Oh! Sun, let thy beams still illumine our land. 
And glory awaken on every hand; 
Let our chickens still crow at thy rising for aye, 
And the name of our worthies be doom'd ne'er to die. 




ml, ax % Jreant 0f '$ak. 



''Ah ! me, how many a tender tear, 
Has fallen on the untimely bier 
Of those who on the field have died. 
Sad martyrs to egregious pride ! 
How many a happy heart hath bled 
Upon false honor's gory bed ? 
How many a blasted hope is found, 
Upon ' the dark and bloody ground ?' "—Anon. 



ENTLE reader, the story which I am about to 
irecord, and which from the sensitive heart may 
'demand the tribute of a tear, is not drawn from 
the vast store of poetical imagination; but actu- 
'ally occurred — and that, too, within the confines 
of the glorious little State of Delaware, the 
damsels of which are among the loveliest in the 
world. You may talk of the Peries of Persia; 
of the Sylphs of Circassia, and the dark-eyed, 
dazzling Georgian girls; but never was there a 
more graceful or beautiful being, than the one 
whose touching story I am about to relate. Mark 
me, my dear reader, I am not exaggerating. 
Every eye that beheld her, was entranced, as if 
some Houri of the Turkish heaven had come 
down to earth, blessed with the grace of a Grecian Venus. 

Evelina Summerville was not only distinguished for her personal 
beauty, but for her talents and elegant attainments; and when I 
say that she was pre-eminent among the dark-eyed damsels of 
Delaware, I have paid her the highest compliment it is in my 
power to pay. 

Evelina was the only and idolized daughter of respectable and 

wealthy parents, in the town of M , in which she moved the 

centre of every elegant and accomplished circle. No expense 
was spared to have her accomplished, not only in the brilliant and 
beautiful, but in the more solid branches of learning. She was 




WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD, 329 

placed in Wilmington, at that excellent Female Institute, which 
has sent forth so many accomplished young ladies, to become, aa 
mothers, the great moral teachers in the happy homes of Delaware, 

Evelina Summerville was not only beautiful and accomplished ; 
but in her manners there was a magic, a witchery, that won and 
carried captive every heart. A light, as beautiful and blissful as 
that which beams from the eye of an angel, was ever illuminating 
with smiles her lovely countenance; and in her heart there was 
so much gentleness, and affectionate feeling, that few could enjoy 
her society long, without loving her. In company, she was so free, 
so familiar, so kind, that the most diffident were placed at perfect 
ease; for she possessed that peculiar art of making every one feel 
the freedom that is felt at home. Whether at home or abroad, 
her merry laugh infused joy into every heart; for she was ever the 
same light-hearted being, and knew that by sympathy we weep 
with those who weep, and laugh with those who laugh. Is it, then, 
any wonder that Evelina Summerville became a universal favorite, 
and that many a dashing dandy bowed down in adoration before 
her? No. She was beloved by the young and the old, the rich 
and the poor, the haughty and the humble, the happy and the 
wretched. 

Evelina and George Blakely had formed a mutual attachment 
in childhood, while at school; and they had breathed a mutual 
vow, that they would live for each other; that no changes of time, 
no reverses of fortune, no whim or caprice should estrange them. 
The parents of Evelina saw the growing attachment with disap»> 
probation ; for though George, in boyhood, was held up as a pattern 
of moral excellence; he, or his parents were guilty of one thing 
not to be forgiven — poverty! Yes, poor George was condemned 
by them for his poverty, a thing he had no hand in, and which he 
might in future years retrieve. 

Mr. and Mrs. Summerville were both ambitious, and they desired 
their daughter, as she was endowed with extraordinary beauty, and 
would be wealthy beside, towed some rich and distinguished man. 
■George was obscure and poor. He was not even celebrated within 
the purlieus of his own town, and he supported himself by teaching 
a school. 

Sad was the soul of George, and gloomy was the day, when 
Evelina bade adieu to the sunny scenes of her childhood, and 
went her way to Wilmington, to finish her education. Her parents 
had two objects in view; the first of which was, to avail themselves 
of the advantages of an excellent seminary; and the second was, 
43 



330 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

the hope that a long absence would obliterate her affection for 
poor, obscure George; for the understanding was, that she was to 
remain until she completed a full collegiate education. Vain, 
illusive hope ! They did not think of those winged messengers 
of love, that would carry to each bereaved bosom a sweet conso- 
lation — the consolation of still being remembered. They thought 
not of those couriers, called letters, which, though silent and un- 
seen, bear heart-warm blessings many a weary mile. No, they 
did not think of these. 

Evelina did not long remain at the institute, in Wilmington, 
without attracting the eyes of the proudest and loftiest, to her 
transcendent beauty. As at home, she became the envy of her 
own sex, and the admiration of the most gifted and accomplished 
men, till her personal and mental beauty became the theme of all, 
who could properly appreciate her charms. 

She had been in Wilmington one year, and had been visited 
once by her parents. She often mused upon days gone by, and 
when the happy scenes of her childhood rose before her, bright 
and beautiful as when she wandered in them, in other years, with 
George, the vision of love became so vivid, that she felt a regret 
that she had been so long separated from him, whom absence had 
made dearer. Though it was in her nature to be happy, the 
thought that she was exiled from all that she loved, made her gloomy. 

" Come," said she, one bright and beautiful morning in June, 
to a class mate, "come, Gertrude, let us stroll on the romantic 
banks of the Brandywine. Every thing now is bursting into bloom 
and beauty, and the songs of birds, and the sight of flowers, will 
cheer my mind, which has too long indulged in a vision of love, 
which, though sweet, is sorrowful to the soul." 

"I saw a cloud upon your sunny countenance," returned the 
smiling Gertrude, " but did not know you were in love. Ah! well 
Virgil says, 'it is a comfort to the wretched to have companions 
in misery.' " 

" My heart is far away," sighed the gay Evelina, as they turned 
into Market street, and were approached by a young gentleman, 
who was well acquainted with Gertrude. 

" Oh ! Frank," exclaimed Gertrude, " let me make you acquainted 
with one of the loveliest of her sex." 

Francis Wildemer was like a brother to Gertrude; and, between 
them, there was an attachment of a higher import than that which 
exists between brother and sister; but no sooner did he gaze into 
the face of Evelina, than he felt the arrow of Dan Cupid transfixed 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 331 

in his heart. Gertrude saw the triumph of charms superior to her 
own, and she watched his every look and motion, when they had 
ascended the Brandy wine and seated themselves on some romantic 
rocks. Her heart beat with indescribable emotions, when she 
saw their eyes meet, and had, or imagined she had, evidence that 
a flame had been suddenly lighted on the altar of their hearts. She 
felt how severe it was to see our own hopes blighted'— to see the fair 
flowers of affection, which we have nurtured so gently, perish at 
our feet — to see the superb temple, which was erected in our 
hearts, tumbled to atoms. 

Severe as it was, Gertrude did see her fondest hopes decay. The 
truth is soon told. Frank had been struck by one of those arrows 
called love at first sight; and, though he had considered Gertrude 
beautiful, the transcendent charms of Evelina carried his heart 
captive, by what the French call a coup de main, or, perhaps, more 
properly, a covp d'ceil. 

Francis Wildemer was the heir of a wealthy and influential family 
in Pennsylvania, and he resolved to woo and win the heart and 
hand of Evelina at all hazards. He was one of those rattle-brained, 
dare-devil fellows, who stop at nothing, and who care not for the 
means, so that the end is accomplished. Though young, he had 
already been engaged in one of those lamentable remnants of the 
Feudal ages, called a duel, in which, some way or other, much to 
to the credit of Frank, a lady had been involved. 

When the time arrived for the return of Evelina to the home of 
her childhood, George Blakely was made superlatively happy, and 
Francis Wildemer superlatively wretched. Frank was now madly 
in love with her; had proposed; and, much to his surprise, had 
been rejected. Evelina's parents were on his side; but Evelina's 
heart was averse to his proposal. 

" Why do you reject me?" enquired Frank. 

"For the best of reasons in the world," returned the bewitching 
girl, smiling. "The first is, that my heart has long since been 
given to another; and the second is, that I breathed an irrevocable 
vow never to wed any but him. To be candid with you, Frank, are 
not these weighty reasons?" 

"They are certainly heavy and hard ones, too," sighed Frank, 
with a downcast look, "but cannot they be waived?" 

"No, never. The vow breathed by the innocent lips of child' 
hood, from a heart that knew no guile, cannot be lightly can- 
celled — can never be forgotten. If you regard my peace of mind 
and future happiness, I conjure you to relinquish the vain hope of 



332 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

my hand; for you surely would not wish to possess my hand with- 
out my heart. You are of too noble a disposition to wish to 
possess my hand, while my heart would be possessed by another." 

"But, dearest Evelina, I have the consent of your parents, 
which I solicited when they last visited you. Would you set at 
nought their wishes, and violate their commands ? Who is he, 
whom you would wed? I conjure you to think of this. Is he 
not poor, obscure and low?" 

A flame of resentment flashed up from the heart of Evelina, 
kindling her eye and cheek; and, ere he finished the sentence so 
obnoxious to her soul, she warmly exclaimed, " Oh I yes, sir, that 
he is poor, is very true; but have I not an ample inheritance to 
bestow upon him ? It is true that, like many others, he has not 
distinguished himself yet in the field or the forum; but a nobler 
heart, than that within his bosom, does not bless, nor beat within, 
the happy homes of Delaware." 

"But are your parents' wishes nothing. Miss Summerville?" 
enquired Frank, with a cool provoking air. 

" I see," retorted Evelina, as her lovely eyes were again lit up 
by a sudden emotion, " that you are disposed to seek assistance 
from supposed parental power. Do not, I pray you, deceive 
yourself. The fortune bequeathed me, by my uncle, I hold inde- 
pendent of my parents; and I hold this truth to be self-evident, 
that a daughter has certain inalienable rights, among which, is 
that of choosing the man who, as her husband, is, in her judgment, 
best qualified to render her happy. Oh! how many, many hearts 
have broke and bled under the tyranny of parents! How many 
amiable daughters have been forced to wed with those they could 
not love, and have been doomed to drag out a life of wretchedness, 
unalleviaiedby a singlejoy ! Some have gone to dwell in splendid 
mansions, and, while surrounded with all the gorgeous trappings 
of wealth, their hearts were pining away in unavailing grief and 
regret. They were given, by their avaricious parents, to men, 
whose wealth allured them; while their afiections had been given, 
by themselves, to those, whose feelings and aff"ections were con- 
genial with their own. Think of this, Mr. Wildemer, and you 
will see, that you could not be happy with one, whose affections 
belong to another." 

"Then, Miss Summerville, you spurn parental guardianship, and 
rely entirely on your own judgment?" 

"No, sir; I do not. No one more reveres the advice of a pa- 
rent than I do, and no one would make greater sacrifices for their 



WBITINGS OF THE MILFORU BARD. 333 

happiness; but when I am to be made a sacrifice to Mammon; 
when my husband is to be chosen, and he is not to be the one 
who possesses my affections, I beg to demur. Never till my pa- 
rents can feel as I feel, and judge as I judge, will I consent to 
their choice of a husband for me. What are all the glittering 
gewgaws of wealth, and all the pomp and pride of princely gran- 
deur, if the heart is mourning over the mausoleum of its hopes?" 

" Well, dearest Evelina," said Frank, taking her small white 
hand in both of his, "you will think better of my proposition 
hereafter. It would be the pride of my soul to grace my ancestral 
halls with so lovely a flower as Evelina Summerville, who is, in 
my eye, the fairest of the fair." 

"But if that flower should pine and perish, for the want of con- 
genial soil, your triumph would be short-lived," returned the 
beauty, as she curved her lip, and bent her dark, dazzling eye full 
upon him. 

Evelina's words were calculated to dampen the ardor of one 
less determined than Francis Wildemer; but they only had the 
effect of making him more strenuous in his efforts to win the 
proud beauty. Though her independent spirit militated against 
his hopes and wishes, yet it caused him to admire her the more, 
and he resolved to have her at all hazards. 

"Farewell, Mr. Wildemer," said Evelina, next morning, "I am 
going back to the happy scenes of my childhood." 

"Any place is happy where you are," returned Frank, as he 
grasped her hand. " Farewell, I shall soon follow you." 

"You had better save yourself the trouble." 

"Why so? Is there no hope?" enquired Frank, laughing. 

"No, not a particle," answered the gay girl, echoing his laugh. 

"Well, we shall see," returned Frank, as he shook her hand 
and departed. The huge stage, in a short time after, started; and 
bore away that exquisitely beautiful being, to the great regret of 
more hearts than one. So elegant, so easy and bewitching was 
Evelina in her manners; so engaging and entertaining in her con- 
versation ; and so transcendently beautiful in her person withal, 
that it was no wonder her departure was regretted. 

The golden orb of day had just sunk below the western horizon, 
and the still hour of evening, with all its hallowed associations, 
was coming on, drowning everything in a delicious dreaminess; 
when George Blakely entered the residence of the Summervilles, 
once more blessed with the presence of its household deity. 
Three long years had passed since his eyes had feasted on the 



334 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

charms of the beautiful Evelina. There she lay, reclining on a 
crimson sofa. Fatigued, she had fallen asleep. What a vision of 
love and loveliness ! Since he had seen her, she had thrown off 
girlhood, and had bloomed into the voluptuous beauty of woman- 
hood. There she lay, with all the gorgeous grace and symmetry 
of the Venus de Medicis. No Apelles, no Michael Angelo, no 
Raphael ever imagined — no painter's pencil, no sculptor's chisel 
ever fashioned or formed so much of grace and beauty. On one 
fairy hand rested her exquisite head, from which fell a profusion 
oP ringlets, shading a neck and bosom that were smooth as marble, 
and white as alabaster. Her form, of perfect symmetry, was 
stretched at full length ; and from her white muslin dress pro- 
truded two of the most diminutive and delicate little feet, the very 
slippers on which had power to wound the heart. Bui George's 
eyes were fixed on the angelic face before, on which the twilight 
fell with a mellow radiance, heightening the bloom on her glowing 
cheek. Her lips, so like 

"A dish of ripe strawberries, smother'd in cream," 

seemed to be moving, as if breathing blessings ; while a smile 
played over them, like the golden sunlight of morning dancing on 
twin rose-buds. That smile was sunlight, indeed, to the soul of 
George ; and he longed to look into the dreamy depths of those 
dark and dazzling eyes, which now closed upon this world, ano 
were surveying the romantic revelations of a world of dreams. 

Scarcely did the wish cross his mind, ere she awoke ; and, 
springing to her feet, stood before him the very impersonation of 
an earthly angel. Awed by the presence of so much virtue, dig- 
nity and beauty, he looked bewildered, not knowing what to say 
or which way to turn ; but the cordial welcome he received from 
the fair Evelina, soon reassured him ; and no sooner did the light 
of her lovely eye fall upon him, than he was satisfied that she was 
still the same in faith and in affection, unaltered by the lapse of 
time. 

Sweetly and swiftly, now, flew by the golden hours; though 
the cold, averted looks of Mr. and Mrs. Suinmerville, met George 
every time he crossed the threshold. He often heard Evelina 
speak of Francis Wildemcr; and one day he saw an elegant car- 
riage stop at the hotel, the occupant of which alighted, and went 
immediately to the residence of the Summervilles. The very 
sound of the knocker seemed like the knell of all his hopes. A 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 335 

wealthy suitor, he knew, could not but be well received by the 
parents of Evelina; and, for a week, he was on the horns of a 
dilemma, not knowing how to proceed. 

The parents of Evelina were delighted with the gay, dashing, 
young Frank Wildemer; and used every argument to induce Eve- 
lina to accept his proffered hand. 

"Would you have me happy or miserable?" she enquired. "If 
I am to be the first, I must marry George ; but if I am to be miser- 
able, I must wed Francis Wildemer, whom I do not love." 

"Cannot you be happy with so wealthy and agreeable a young 
man as Francis ?" asked her father. 

"No, my dear father; have I not often heard you declare, that 
there was no situation in life so wretched, as was that of a woman 
compelled to marry the man she could not love?" 

This was a death-blow to the arguments of her parents, and 
they resolved that the best way was to let her make her own choice. 
Frank, in the mean time, was determined to carry off the great 
beauty, and threatened to call out any man who should dare to 
step between him and the angel of his idolatry. George had met 
Frank frequently, at Mr. Summerville's house ; and, though they 
treated each other politely, there was, evidently, no good feeling 
subsisting between them. 

One charming evening, in August, George found Evelina alone, 
and made up his mind to put the matter at rest, by making a de- 
cisive proposal. He was resolved to know the worst, and to marry 
the fair object of his adoration, or relinquish all hope in future. 

" Have you forgotten," said he to the fair creature before him, 
" the mutual vows that we breathed in the happy days of child- 
hood, when we pledged ourselves to live for each other?" 

"I never forget a solemn obligation," returned Evelina, while a 
slight blush passed over her face. 

"Are you ready to redeem that vow?" 

•'I am;" and a deeper blush crimsoned the face of Evelina, 

"Enough; I am the happiest of men." 

The day was appointed for their marriage, and George went to 
his school in an ecstasy of bliss. So bewildered was he, that he 
set wrong copies; spilled ink; split pens, and was totally unable 
to do sums, for his pupils, in arithmetic. His parents thought he 
was becoming deranged, until they discovered that he was soon to 
be married to the loveliest of women, and tiie favorite of all who 
knew her. 



336 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

There was, however, a cloud upon the mind of Evelina. She 
had heard that Frank had sworn vengeance to any man who should 
cross his path in courtship, and she dreaded that a duel would be 
the consequence ; well knowing that the soul of George would 
never shrink from a challenge, and that Frank had been engaged 
in a duel. This fearful thought took full possession of her mind, 
and she laid an injunction, that the matter should be kept a secret 
until they were married ; that, as a married man, George might 
refuse to fight, without any sacrifice of honor. Two nights be- 
fore, she had a dreadful dream, in which she saw George fall be- 
fore the pistol of Frank ; and the vision was so vivid that she 
could not banish it from her mind. The bleeding form of George 
was ever before her excited imagination ; and being, like most 
persons, superstitious, she was firmly persuaded that something 
would happen. 

In the mean time, preparations were going on for a splendid 
wedding; the house was crowded with mantua-makers, milliners, 
and merchants' clerks; enormous pound-cakes were being baked, 
and the house renovated from top to bottom. 

At length the morning of the marriage day arrived, and Evelina 
was almost worn out with the incessant fatigue she had under- 
gone. Still that dreadful fear, that something would happen, was 
in her mind ; she could not shake it off; and in her disordered 
fancy she could see her beloved George borne from the fatal duel- 
ing ground, bleeding and gashed with wounds. 

Every arrangement having been made, she sat down, in the 
afternoon, in her large arm rocking chair to rest her wearied 
limbs. A dreamy sleepiness stole over her, for she had not closed 
her eyes the night before. Suddenly the door opened, and a ser- 
vant rushed in, crying, "Oh! Miss Evelina, there is mad work at 
the hotel!" 

"For God's sake," exclaimed Evelina, as she started up, "what 
is the matter? Is George killed ? Speak?" 

" Oh ! he and Mr. Wildemer have had a fight, and the floor is 
covered with blood. Then they parted them, and Mr. Wildemer 
swore he would have revenge, and challenged Mr. George to meet 
him over the bridge, in an hour." 

"Did George accept it?" screamed Evelina in trepidation. 

"Yes, Ma'am, and they are now fixing and making their ar- 
rangements for the bloody work." 

"Oh! I expected it! I expected it!" screamed Evelina, as she 
ran round the room, wringing her hands, in a wild transport of 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 337 

despair. "He will be killed! he will be killed! Oh! God, I 
dreamt of it the other night! Wretched being that I am! But 
it must, it must be prevented." 

With dishevelled hair, and a wild imploring look, she rushed 
into the room of her parents, and falling upon her knees before 
her father, she shrieked in piteous tones, "Save him, oh! save 
him, my father, or 1 am eternally undone !" 

To her surprise, her father turned and said, unmoved, "As you 
make your bed, my daughter, so you must lie in it. Had you been 
obedient to the wishes of your parents, had you not violated the 
sacred duty you owe to them, you would have escaped the horri- 
ble event which now wrings your soul with anguish. You have 
drawn the judgment upon yourself." 

"Save him, oh! save him, my mother!" again screamed Evelina. 

"You have drawn this just punishment on your own head," 
coolly responded her mother. "Your headstrong will may be the 
cause of one, perhaps of two human beings being ushered into the 
presence of an offended God, covered with their own blood." 

Evelina shrieked wildly in her despair; and flying to her cham- 
ber, she hastily threw on her bonnet, and fled from the house like 
one distracted, scarcely knowing what she did. She flew to the 
hotel, but they were not there, and she could not learn in what 
direction they were gone. 

"Oh! horrors," she cried, as she rushed along the street to the 
house in which George's parents lived, "perhaps, ere now, pierced 
by a ball, George has fallen !" 

Without ceremony, she ran into the house, screaming — "Save 
him! Oh! save him ! or let me perish with him." 

" Save whom ?" cried the father of George. 

" Save George ; he has gone to fight a duel." 

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Blakely, "you have been the cause of the 
murder of my son ; his blood is on your head ! You have em- 
bittered my days, and will send my grey hairs in sorrow to the 
grave. Oh ! wretched mother that I am !" 

These words passed through the brain of Evelina like red-hot 
balls. The next moment the sound of voices and the tramping of 
feet, rushing by, saluted her ear, and the cry, '•' a man has been 
killed in a duel!" caused her to shriek. As she turned her 
streaming eyes to the door, a number of men appeared, bearing the 
dead body of her affianced husband — the bleeding form of George. 

" Behold the havoc you have made !" cried the weeping mother 
of George, to Evelina. — " Behold my murdered son !" 
43 



338 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Evelina would have fled from the scene, but she was transfixed 
to the spot. She was held as by a spell, while her wildly glaring 
eyes were directed to the bleeding bosom of George. A ball had 
pierced his heart, and the blood was oozing from the wound. 
His pale face which she had so often seen wreathed in smiles, 
was turned towards her ; and while she fixed her gaze upon it, the 
mourning mother, swooned, and fell across the lifeless body. 

But the dreadful scene was not yet complete — the last act of the 
awful tragedy was to be enacted. Francis Wildemer, with a hag- 
gard countenance, his eyes rolling in frenzy, rushed into the room ; 
and standing before the affrighted Evelina, with a glittering dag- 
ger in his hand, he exclaimed — " Oh ! fatal beauty, see the havoc 
that your coquettish charms have made ! Another victim is doomed 
to die at your feet, a sad sacrifice to that dangerous gift, called 
beauty." 

Evelina shuddered and shook like an aspen leaf; but as if held 
by the charm of an enchantress, she could not move from the 
spot. The wild eye of Wildemer was fixed upon her, and its 
fascination seemed to hold her very soul enthralled ; as the poor 
bird is held captive by the mysterious eye of the serpent. In vain 
she endeavored to turn from its ghastly gaze — in vain she attempted 
to fly from the terrific scene. 

"I have come to die at your feet," exclaimed Wildemer, and 
plunged the dagger to his heart. As he fell, she saw the blood 
stream from his bosom, and his eyes roll in agony. 

" Oh ! God, have mercy!" she screamed ; " he has killed liimself!" 

"Who? who? What is the matter?" cried Mrs. Summerville. 
" Why, Evelina, you have been struggling with the nightmare. 
Wake up ; it is high time for you to be dressing for the marriage 
ceremony. Get about; the guests will soon be here." 

Evelina had indeed been dreaming. She had fallen asleep in 
the chair, and her former foolish fear that Frank and George might 
have an altercation, had caused her dream of the duel. How dif- 
ferent was the scene ! They were soon after married, and with 
mirth and music the joyous evening passed away. The next morn- 
ino- an elegant carriage was seen at the door of the hotel, in which 
Francis Wildemer seated himselt", and drove off to parts unknown. 

George and Evelina now dwell in one of the happiest homes of 
Delaware, and they have a thriving family of children, whose heads 
rise one above another, like stair-steps. Evelina has never re- 
(rrelted her choice of a husband, neither has she forgotten the 
Duel, or the Dream of Love. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 339 



t Mmkti] (lI)iittniftE&. 

A POETICAL TALE. 

Now gentle folks, tho' I'm a little hippy, 

That is, somewhat affected with the blues; 
I'll sing you what is call'd a comic ditty, 
Of what, I'm told, 
Occurr'd of old. 
In Philadelphia city, 
And which in ancient prints you may peruse. 

On Market street, 
Say ten, or mayhap forty, fifty feet. 
Or I don't know but ninety-odd or more, 
From the corner, 
Lived Mr. Horner, 
Who kept of boots and shoes a first-rate store; 
And just next door, 
A show, 
You know, 
Was kept as a museum by John Cope; 
And in the large yard back, 
A monkey — Dandy Jack, 
Was playing pranks all day upon a rope. 

Two yards or so, perhaps it might be four, 
From this same rope, in Horner's shop, alas! 

There was a window cut; there was no door 

Thro' which Jack could survey all that might pass, 
Without a glass. 
And there, from day to day, 
How long I cannot say, 
Did he peruse 
The workmen making shoes; 
'Till he, I think, beUeved at last, 
That he could stitch a boot or shoe as fast. 
And well 
As any journeyman he saw 
His wax'd end draw; 
But still till he had tried he could not tell. 

The proof of any matter, 

Philosophers have said. 

So I have read; 
Is first to eat the pie, then lick the platter; 
So when one day the workmen went to dinner, 

As I'm a sinner. 



340 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Jack thro' the window shp'd from his retreat, 
And took upon a workman's bench his seat; 

With knowing look, 

The shoe he took, 
And strap 'd it nicely on his kue(>; 

And then, you see, 
He took his awl, and many a hole 
He bored through both the upper and the sole, 
While with the end he sewed them fast. 

Ay, even to the last; 
Hearing the sound of footsteps, Jack retreated, 
And in a trice upon his rope was seated. 

"What scoundrel has been here?" 
Now fell upon Jack's ear. 
From the enraged shoemaker, who beheld 

His shoe sew'd up into a knot; 
While all his soul with indignation swell 'd; 
And many an oath 
Was utter'd on the spot. 
Which frighten 'd Jack out of a year of growth; 

Till finding that 
The workman had not smelt a rat. 
But thought that some outrageous fellow, 

Gtuite mellow, 
Had done the shameful act, nor could conceive 
'Twas Jack, tho' Jack was laughing in his sleeve. 

Now the same play, 

Next day. 

Jack acted over; 
And while he sew'd the ends all up. 
And took the paste and lamp-black cup, 

And rub'd, 

And scrub 'd , 
The shoe sole well, he thought he was in clover; 

Nor would he budge, 

Till from the street he heard 

A footstep, or a word, 
When thro' the window he like hghtning flew, 
And to the roaring mad shoemaker's view, 
Sat on his rope as solemn as a judge. 

For several days Jack play'd this game, 
While the shoemaker thunder 'd, 
And wonder'd 
What villain could be guilty of the same; 
No person thro' the door, 
Beheld him pass; 
And yet, alas ! 
By some mysterious way he came, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 341 

St. Crispin swore; 
So he resolved to watch for the villain daily, 
And if he caught him, give him his shelalah. 

Next day, 
Crispin, as usual, left Jack at his play, 
And started as if going home to dine; 
But in the next room was a nook, 
From which he, unperceived, could look 
On all 

That might befall; 
And soon his eyes did open wide, 
When he beheld Jack slyly shde 
Into the shop, to cut another shine; 
But to be satisfied 
Jack was the sinner; 
He sat 
Down flat. 
Upon the floor, where he could calmly view 
Jack's villainy, if he did sew the shoe. 
Instead of going home to dinner. 

Jack soon began. 

Like any journeyman. 
To push the awl and draw the cord, that is. 

By all the craft, 
Yclep'd the wax'd end, far and near; 

And Ci'ispin laugh 'd, 
To see the awful and most comic phiz 
Jack made; his mouth was spread from ear to ear, 

And straining, too, 

To pull it through, 
His eyes look'd like two red potatoes 

Stuck in a pumpkin red; 
And Crispin swore, by all the Catos, 
He'd be revenged upon the monkey's head. 

So dinner time, next day. 
Came round, and Jack as usual was sitting, 

Watching for tha next play. 
And laughing as if both his sides were splitting, 
"I'll make you laugh on t'other side," 
Replied 
The workman, whose surname was Eleazer, 

And from his draw'r he took 

A box and brush and razor, 

And strap'd the latter on a book; 

While Jack, with knowing look. 
Still sat upon the rope an idle gazer; 
Chuckling to think how he would imitate, 
And little dreaming of approaching fate. 



342 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Now Eleazer, 
After he long and well had strap 'd the razor, 
Made a soap slush, 
And with the brush, 
Lather 'd his face all over; 

Then held the razor full in view, 
Which twice across his neck he drew. 
But 'twas the back; 
So then he laid it down and went to dinner. 

Poor Jack 
Thought now he certainly had got in clover; 
And long upon the book, 

When Jack crept in the shop with cunning look, 
He strap 'd the razor, 
A la mode de Eleazer, 
Feeling the edge to see if it was thinner. 

When back from dinner Eleazer came, — 

Oh ! what a shame ! 
Oh! what a piteous sight was here! 

Jack's corpse upon the bench was gather 'd. 
His throat was cut from ear to ear; 
And his whole face was thickly lather 'd: 
Pale as a ghost he lay, 
His spirit having pass'd av.'ay. 

Alas! Jack's sad catastrophe, 

Should teach us never to make free 

With other people's business, for I've learnt. 

In meddling you but get your fingers burnt. 



The glorious little Banner State, which had the honor, through Mr. M'Kean, of 
giving a Constitution to the United States. 

Oh! land of my childhood, I long to behold 
Thy green grassy tombs, and thy temples of old; 
I long to survey the sweet spot where I trod. 
Where in youth I fell down at the footstool of God. 

Dear home of my heart, in the moments of sleep, 
Again in thy green shady woodlands I weep; 
In the arms of my mother, I smile as I start, 
And awake far away, oh! thou home of my heart! 



"WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 343 

In the dark dream of memory fondly [ mourn 
O'er the hopes from my heart that have rudely been torn; 
O'er affections that faded in boyhood's bright day, 
And the vows that have vanished like music away. 

Sweet land of the beautiful, land of the brave, 
Where my forefathers fell in a jiatriot's grave; 
I envy the bird that now builds in thy bowers. 
And the bee that is banqueting there on the flowers. 

The sister with whom I so fondly have strayed, 
And the schoolmates so merry with whom I have played. 
Have gone to the grave, like the hopes I have known, 
And have left me to weep and to wander alone. 

In the land of the stranger my footsteps I bend, 
Where I press to my bosom full many a friend; 
Tho' the pathway of sin and of sorrow I've trod. 
And have wandered away from the worshiji of God. 



m S met fair Man] lan^ 

'TwAs on a merry morn in June, 

Thro' beauty's blooming bower, 
I wander 'd, with my harp in tune, 

To seek the fairest flower; 
But ev'n the blushing rose of Spain 
Could not compare, in sun or shower, 

With one that graced those scenes; 
For there I met fair Mary Jane, 

Exulting in her 'teens. 



The lily hung its lovely head. 

The pink essny'd to please; 
The honey-suckle, sighing, shed 

Its odors on the breeze; 
But not a flowret would I deign 
To pluck, from trellice or from trees. 

In those romantic scenes; 
For there I met fair Mary Jane, 

Exulting in her 'teens. 

The brightest, sweetest flowers were there. 
That grace this flowery world; 

The rose breath 'd incense on the air. 
Its leaves tlie cowslip curl'd; 



344 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

But there was one that was not vain, 
And it no gaudy leaves unfurl 'd; 

The charm of those bright scenes; 
For there I met fair Mary Jane, 

Exulting in her 'teens. 

Oh! wheresoe'er my feet may stray, 

Amid life's varied flowers; 
I never can forget the day, 

I wander'd thro' the bowers; 
And tho' they ne'er can come again, 
I never can forget the hours, 

In those romantic scenes; 
For there I met Miss Mary Jane, 

Yet lovely In her 'teens. 



dBnBning on \^t fixBl of lunt 

'Tis the first night of June, and the song of the bird 
No more in the glade or green woodland is heard; 
The herd in the field, and the lambs on the hill. 
Have sunk to their slumbers — all Nature is still. 



The bee from his bower has gone to his hive. 
And the garden no more hums with insects alive; 
No more the gay butterfly's beauty we scan, 
For all are at rest, but the spirit of man. 

The sun has gone down o'er the hills, and behold! 
The horizon is glowing with azure and gold; 
While above in its beauty the evening star beams, 
Like the light of young hope in love's rapturous dreams. 

The moon now appears, where the clouds have been riven, 
Like a silver lamp hung in the high hall of Heaven; 
And she smiles in her brilliance on beautiful bowers; 
Adorn 'd with the sweetest and faii'est of flowers. 

'Tis sweet at this moment to muse on the past, 
When the storm-king in terror rode by on the blast; 
When the birds flew away from the Winter in fear, 
And the flowers were gone to the grave of the year. 

Oil! much do I love at this moment to dream. 
At moonlight alone by some murmuring stream. 
Of the spring-time of life, though its blisses are o'er, 
And alns ! in this world, nothing now can restore! 



C|e ^iiggakfl. 



Tiie mightiest minds, that ever slied their light 
O'er the world's dark interminable night, 
Have bowed at Superstition's gloomy shrine, 
With all the zeal that marks the mind divine ; 
Have started at the phantom fancy made, 
Nor saw the weakness that their fears betray'd. 



^DISTINGUISHED philosopher has said, that 
early impressions seldom or never fade. The 
question may be asked, why are some persons 
so much more superstitious; so much more 
fearful in solitude and darkness than others? 
This question is easily answered. The tales 
of ghosts, goblins and buggaboos, which are 
told in the nursery and eagerly listened to in 
early life, are the prolific source of more than 
half the superstition which sits like an incubus 
on the human mind. The horrible stories re- 
lated to children in the nursery by the ignorant 
nurse, and even at the fireside by parents, have 
caused many a child to be afraid of his own 
shadow, and made many a man a coward 
through life. Who has not sat in childhood by 
the winter evening fireside and listened to tales of ghosts, until 
he was afraid to go to bed, or even to look round? Remember, 
parents of this enlightened age, that these impressions never fade ; 
but cling to the mind through after life, causing many an hour of 
anxiety and terror. Never suffer the nurse to frighten your children 
with the tales of ghosts and goblins, and they will never fear 
darkness more than light; the solitary grave-yard will have no ter- 
rors for them ; neither will they start with affright at a vague object 
in the dark. 

Knowing the evil effects of nursery tales myself, I once requested 
my mother not to suffer the nurse, or any other person, to poison 
the mind of a young brother, then an infant, with those supersti- 
4 




346 ■WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

tious Stories. The injunction was strictly observed, and the boy 
grew up entirely free from fear, and unshackled by superstition. 
The terrors which haunt the minds of other children, troubled him 
not. He felt no alarm when he entered the dark room alone, or 
traversed the lonely church-yard. As a proof that his mind was 
not imbued with that fearfulness so common to children, I will 
relate the following test to which I subjected him when he was but 
ten years of age. 

On a table in the room where I wrote, sat a human skull ; which 
I had brought from the University of Pennsylvania. One night, 
about eight o'clock, I said, " Tom, what will you ask to go up to 
my room, alone in the dark, and bring me the skull that sits on 
the table? Will you do it for a dollar?" 

"Yes." 

'• Will you for half a dollar?" I enquired. 

"Yes." 

" Will you for a quarter?" 

"Why, brother John," said he with a smile, " I am not afraid; 
I'll bring it down for nothing." 

And away he went, though it was so dark that he had to grope 
his way; but in a few minutes he returned, bearing in his hand 
the identical human skull. 

"Oh!" exclaimed his young sister, "I would not have done it 
for the world!" 

And indeed how many children can now be found who would 
feel no terror in performing such a task? Yet that skull was nothing 
more than a piece of wood of the same size. There is no in- 
herent cause of alarm in a dead body. That horror which pervades 
the mind, originates in those early impressions which are said 
never to fade. 

Some of the greatest men that have ever adorned the pages of 
history or dignified the world, have been as superstitious as the 
most ignorant. It is a false idea to suppose that none but the 
ignorant are superstitious. Dr. Johnson, who has been aptly styled 
the great Leviathian of English literature, was a firm believer in 
ghosts, and excited great alarm in London at one time in consequence 
of the appearance of one in that city, great notoriety to which was 
given by the Doctor. It is well known that the celebrated John 
Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was no less a believer in these 
airy visitants and bugbears of the brain, than was Dr. Johnson ; 
ample proof of which may be gathered from his "Journal." 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. 347 

How can we account for such minds being imbued with such 
unreasonable philosophy, but from the supposition that the seeds of 
superstition had been sown in early years, when the mind imbibes 
erroneous opinions with a greedy avidity ? The education of child- 
hood we cannot shake off, though the mind in after years may be 
illumined with all the learning of the Vatican. Mahomet could 
not propagate his doctrines save by the sword, when they were 
first promulgated to the grown up Turks; but when the next gen- 
eration imbibed them in childhood, no sword was required-— they 
were established by the force of education. 

When we consider, then, the power and the importance of early 
impressions, how cautious should we be, that nothing should be 
imprinted on the youthful mind but that which is salutary — guard- 
ing every avenue against the entrance of false opinions; supersti- 
tious fallacy, and doubtful doctrines! The impressions made on 
the mind of the child, mark out the course of the man, and shape 
his future destiny in a great degree, whether for good or evil. 

Were all parents qualified to judge of this matter, and were all 
parents to watch with solicitude the expansion of the infant intel- 
lect, guiding its powers and protecting it from the inroads of 
improper influences, what a glorious race were ours! No longer 
should we behold the human mind a waste overgrown with weeds, 
but a garden filled with gorgeous flowers, blooming in beauty and 
redolent with sweets. 

Well do I remember the tales of the nursery. Full many a 
winter's eve have I sat in the family circle by the cheerful fire, 
and listened to " the oldest inhabitant" relate the story of some 
ghost or goblin, till my hat would rise on my head, and my blood 
run cold. The story must be true, because the grandmother of the 
narrator had seen the ghost, and she was never known to tell an 
untruth. Often while thus intently devouring every word, with 
glaring eyes, have I drawn my chair nearer and nearer to the 
person contiguous, afraid to turn my head, lest the sheeted phantom 
should meet my vision. My mind was haunted with the horrible 
idea, that in a short time the family would retire, and I should be 
under the dreadfiil necessity of going up stairs to bed — ay, and 
alone too. Terrible indeed were my suff*erings, after listening on 
those occasions to the " old people's" stories of the wild and the 
wonderful. Never shall I forget the agonies I have endured, when 
retiring alone at bed-time. 

It was on a dark and stormy night in December, when the spirits 
of the blast were abroad, and the tenipest moaned pitifully round 



348 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

the turrets of the building, that I sat listening to my aged grand- 
mother, who related the story of a ghost seen in a grave-yard, and 
on the road that runs by it. She was returning from a visit to a 
neighbor, in company with one or two persons, when she beheld 
an object slowly emerge from the grave-yard, clothed in white. It 
approached and passed by her, when she discovered that it was a 
man with no head. Oh! horror; I started from my chair with 
affright, and trembled, for it was near the hour of bed-time. 

So soon as the terrible tale was told, the company broke up 
and I went slowly creeping up stairs to bed. The storm had 
passed over, and the moon gave sufficient light to see objects dimly 
in my own room and in the adjoining one, there being a door just 
opposite my bed, which led from the one to the other. In a very 
few moments I was undressed and in bed, covering my head 
closely lest I should see the man with no head. I vainly endeavored 
to shut out from my mind the recollection of the narrative I had 
heard. I called up more pleasing memories, but they would not 
remain — the man with no head would -rise before my excited 
imagination, in spite of all that my judgment could suggest. How 
strange is the notion of a child, that covering his head in bed will 
protect him from all evil influences! There I lay smothering 
beneath a mountain of bed-clothes, while the perspiration was 
pouring from me in streams, though the weather was cold. I 
fancied myself in that lonely grave-yard, and that I was gazing at 
the man with no head, which my grandmother had seen there; 
and cold chills ran over me. 

At length I began to philosophize on the subject, and I resolved 
that I would no longer be a coward; that I would no longer yield 
to the influence of superstition. But my imagination had become 
too much excited to be calm. I threw back the bed-clothes, and 
oh! what was that which appeared before my startled vision? 
Was it a hobgoblin or a demon? I could not tell which. It was 
not the man with no head, for it had horns, and such a head — Oh! 
horror, it was all head. There it was on the opposite side of the 
adjoining room, staring at me. At first I could see but something 
like eyes, but at last I could plainly see its enormous eye-balls roll. 
Oh! how horribly it looked? Again, like a terrapin, I drew my 
head down close under the bed-clothes, while streams of perspi- 
ration continued to gush from every pore. But I could not remain 
covered. Though awfully terrified, my curiosity was irresistible. 
I was bound by a spell which I could not resist, and throwing off 
the covering I looked aorain at the demon. I screamed with 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 349 

affright, when I beheld its horrible mouth, with teeth two inches 
long, grinning at me. Still T gazed, while a kmd of stupor came 
over me; and while I gazed, the demon laughed and rolled its 
large redeyes. The two horns projecting from its monstrous head 
were a foot or more in length, and crooked. Oh! I exclaimed 
to myself, what can it be ? I leaped out of the bed aftd ran towards 
the stair-way. There was no light below, for the family were all 
locked in the sweet forgetfulness of slumber. I alone could not 
sleep, and I thought of Dr. Young's beautiful apostrophe to sleep — 

" He, like the world, his ready visit pays 
Where fortune smiles ; the wretched he forsakes ; 
Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe, 
And lights on Hds unsullied with a tear." 

Though but a boy, I stood upon the stair-way and reasoned 
with myself. If I awaken the family, and find that I have been 
frightened by some trifling cause, I shall be laughed at and never 
hear the end of it. On the contrary, if I fly from the scene and 
never discover the cause, I shall never be able to sleep in that 
room again. But can I ever venture near enough to that horrific 
demon to examine it? I shuddered at the very idea of such an 
adventure. 

But I again stole into my room, as if fearful that the ugly 
looking creature would hear me, and plunged into my bed, every 
moment expecting that the demon would seize me by the leg. 
Oh! what hours of agony did I pass! Though the night was 
cold, I felt it not. My heart was beating like a sledge-hammer, 
and my head swam in delirium. I looked again. There it was, 
in the same place; its eyes still glaring at me, and its terrible teeth 
grinning and gnashing. I scanned its face with a strange wild 
stare, and discovered that it had no nose. Merciful fathers! I 
mentally ejaculated, what a dreadful demon it must be to have no 
nose? Any thing but a hobgoblin without a nose. Its great 
broad chin projected out like that of an old person. As I gazed, 
I could see the enormous head move. A trembling seized me in 
every limb. My head swam round like a top, but still my eyes 
were immovably fixed upon the demon. A charm, like that which 
the serpent exerts over the bird, seemed to rivet my vision. I was 
spell-bound. I now perceived its body, as the moon shone in at 
the window. It was small where it was united with the enormous 
head, but grew larger as it descended. But it had no legs or feet. 
Oh! horror, a demon without legs or feet was too terrible to think 



350 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

of, and again I shook like an aspen leaf, and cold chills ran down 
my back. Again I bolted out of the room, but I could not remain : 
and I resolved to beard the demon, if I perished in the attempt. 
I re-entered the room and approached the door, through which 
I had gazed at the goblin; but no sooner did I get a sight of its 
glaring eye-balls and long teeth, than I leaped back and screamed 
with affright. Oh! Lord, I cried, whither shall I fly? I cannot 
run the risk of being laughed at, and yet if I do not discover the 
reality I shall be frightened to death. 

I now summoned up all my courage, and rushed with desperation 
upon the demon with a large cane in my hand. As I rushed upon 
it, I struck it a tremendous blow; a wild yell proceeded from it, 
and the next instant I saw something leap forth at my feet. I 
was near fainting with affright; my head swam round; I staggered 
backward; turned a complete summerset over a tub, and pitched 
with my head into an iron pot. The force was so great, that my 
head was plunged into it so far, that, with all my strength, I could 
not extricate myself I screamed for help; I bellowed murder; 
but the sound, to me like thunder, died away in the pot. No one 
heard me, for it was now just before day, that period of the night 
when people sleep the soundest. I yelled; I bellowed again and 
again, till my head rung like a bell; but still no one heard me. 
What was I to do? I could not get the pot off, and I could not 
see my way down. Besides the room was full of pots, kettles 
and pans, the surplus hardware of the store below. 

Necessity will cause us to perform many things of which we 
believed ourselves incapable, and I groped my way to the head of 
the stair-way. But alas ! all my caution was unavailing, for I missed 
a step, fell, and went rolling down stairs, while the pot struck and 
rattled on every step as I went, till I reached the parlor carpet. 
Durinof my rapid descent, I cried murder! murder! as loud as I 
could bawl. My mother happened to be lying awake, and hearing 
the rattling of the iron pot and the strange sound of my voice 
in it, she was much alarmed, for she knew not whether it was 
some one breaking into the house, or myself walking in my sleep, 
as I had been known to do. 

There was a simultaneous rushing into the parlor when I picked 
myself up, and a universal laugh broke forth when they beheld 
me with an iron pot over my head. It required repeated trials to 
to get the pot off, when I related the whole night's adventure. 
The day was just dawning, and we all repaired to the room to 
discover the cause of my terror; and, now, gentle reader, what do 



"WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 351 

you suppose the buggaboo was? It was nothing more or less 
than my mother's side-saddle, on which she had been accustomed 
to ride to church, when a girl in the country. Every lady's saddle 
has two horns. There were two red spots which had been em- 
broidered in the seat, and these my imagination transformed into 
glaring eyes rolling in their sockets. Beneath these spots, a part 
of the saddle was worked or stitched with light silk as an ornament, 
and this my fancy made into an enormous mouth, filled with horrible 
teeth. The saddle was hung up against the wall, and under it 
stood a large wooden churn, which answered for a body to the 
awful buggaboo. When I struck the saddle, a cat leaped out from 
behind the churn; as I discovered that she had some beautiful 
kittens concealed there. 

Never, while the pulse of life continues to beat, shall I forget 
that night of terror. An age of suffering was crowded together 
in the space of a few hours; and suffering the most intense, the 
most harrowing to the soul. True, the cause of my fear and of 
my agony was imaginary ; but it was none the less acute on that 
account; and should I live a thousand years, I never wish again 
to see a buggaboo in my mother's side-saddle, nor to wear another 
iron pot over my head. Even now, the very sight of a side-saddle, 
or an iron pot, sets me to shuddering and gives me the horrors. 



t Ipirit of iliagaru, 



Far in the wilderness of woods, 
Where dark Niagara's foaming floods, 
In tumbUng torrents madly leap 
Adown the dark and dizzy steep, 
A wigwam stood in other days, 
Where oft the council fires blaze, 
The war-dance and the wilder yell, 
Told of the victim's last farewell. 
Twelve moons had mov'd in azure heav'n 
Since to the chief a bride was giv'n. 
Tamiroo, loveliest of the wild, 
Nature's untaught, tho' charming child. 
The chief admired her charms, and hung 
On wild lays of her tuneful tongue, 



352 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

When evening, in the echoing grove, 

Witnessed his vows of lasting love. 

Oft would he seek the sounding shore 

When young Tamiroo took the oar, 

And gaze, as in her light canoe. 

Across the lucid lake she flew, 

A fairy gondolier afar. 

Till in the west, the evening star 

Went down, and the majestic moon 

Had gain'd in heav'n her highest noon; 

When back again appear 'd to view 

A sparkling speck, her swift canoe. 

Till nearer, on his eager ear. 

He heard the song of the gondolier. 

Still stretching to the long light oar. 

Till to her chief she flew once more. 

Happy the tide of time roll'd by 

Tears fell not from Tamiroo 's eye, 

Till in the wigwam at her side 

The chief had placed his second bride: 

Then swell'd the sea of sorrow high, 

Then tears came trickling from her eye. 

Turning to memory's light in vain, 

Witli breaking heart and bui-ning brain, 

She saw, with jealousy's alarms. 

Her rival in her husband's arms. 

Stung to the heart with passion's pangs. 

And the vile viper hatred's fangs, 

She gaz'd upon her beauteous boy. 

The pledge of former love and joy. 

And seizing him, with rapid flight. 

Fled from the cruel, killing sight. 

Swift to the shore she onward flew, 

And placed her boy in her canoe, 

Push'd from the shore, the chief defy'd, 

And down the rapid river's tide 

The death-song sung of all her loves, 

A farewell to her woodland groves. 

To all the joys of earlier life. 

Ere she became the injured wife. 

The chief stroll 'd weeping on the strand, 

Beck'ning her back to love and land. 

But swifter down the flood she flew 

And only waved a last adieu; 

He saw her o'er the high cliff hurl'd 

And o'er her bark the billows curl'd, 

Dash'd headlong down where cascades pour 

And loud eternal torrents roar. 

And now, 'tis said when Luna's light 

Dispels the sombre shades of night. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 353 

Her light canoe is seen to glide, 

Adown the rapid river's tide, 

And her death-song is heard again 

In many a sad and sighing strain. 

The lonely traveller often sees 

Her spirit riding on the breeze, 

Or plunging in her madness wild 

Down the deep with her screaming child. 

Again, 'tis said, array 'd in white, 

She walks upon that dizzy height. 

And wrings her hands and tears her hair, 

Mourning upon the midnight air. 



€^i (Irtnt ®atth. 

Fame crowns the hero's dauntless deed, 

Who boldly braves the toils of war, 
Immortal glory, those that bleed, 

Receive from joyful Senates far; 
And monumental trophies stand, 

To tell posterity he died; 
Bright hist'ry's page o'er all the land, 

Records his name with boasted pride. 

Rejoicing millions catch the sound. 

Of battles fought and battles won. 
While sparkhng glasses circle round. 

And hail the deed so nobly done; 
And thund'ring cannons speak the praise 

Of heroes doomed to rise no more; 
Great kingdoms shout the honor'd lays. 

And spread the news from shore to shore. 

Old Greece could tell how Philip's son. 

Laid Persia's warlike heroes low, 
And how brave Sparta's race was run. 

When kingly sires were sunk in woe; 
Yea, Rome can tell how Caesar stood. 

The vengeance of a Pompey's might; 
And how he plung'd thro' waves of blood. 

To conquest in the glorious fight. 

France, Spain and Russia could rehearse 
A tale of bloody deeds and fears; 

Yea, wilder than the muse's verse, 
They could unfold the scroll of years, 



45 



354 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

And tell of Bonaparte with rage, 

What time the dauntless warrior came, 

Sweeping resistless fortune's stage, 
To crown his never-dying fame. 

And Britain could roll back with pride, 

The cloudy veil from valor's son. 
And point to bleeding freedom's side. 

Staunched by immortal Washington; 
And he could tell of heroes brave. 

Of Wellington's and Nelson's arms. 
Yea, point to Spain's inglorious grave, 

And triumph in her war's alarms. 

But there are deeds more glorious still, 

That teach the bosom how to feel: 
'Tis when man curbs his head-strong will 

And stops ambition's fiery zeal; 
Yea, this is fame not bought with pelf, 

When man can govern unconfined, 
And rule that mighty man called self. 

By the great battle of the mind. 



^olanb. 



Ye sons of dire contention strong, 
Ye sons of sacrilege and wrong; 
Ye factious sons who wield the rod 
Where intrigue makes the demi-god. 
Go view in pity Poland's doom, 
And drop a tear upon her tomb. 
For she was powerful and great, 
But faction seal'd her hapless fate. 

Ye sons of mock religion's pow'r, 
Remember well that luckless hour. 
And ye disbenching churches guard 
Against that cause which now has marr'd 
The peace of Poland's kingdom bright. 
And sunk her fame in endless night, 
For ah, she can arise no more. 
Oppression covers all her shore. 

The Russian standard now doth wave. 
And Prussia's banner o'er her grave; 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 355 

The Austrian monarch treads her plain, 

Which shall with flow'rs ne'er bloom again, 

And her fair genius flies afar 

To shun the dreadful toils of war; 

Alas! those sons who plough 'd the waves 

Are now degraded into slaves. 

The sons of rapine fearless came 
To cloud fair Poland's boasted fame; 
The i-eeking dagger, bloody dart, 
Drank deep the crimson of each hearty 
Till o'er her fair and boasted shore 
Were seen the sti-eams of human gore; 
Till o'er the ashes of the Pole 
Was hung the drapery of the soul. 

Top late, alas! the fell disease, 
Was found to give distress its ease; 
The plunge was deep and sad the sore 
Which must exist for evermore. 
Poor Stanislaus has mourn 'd his doomj 
And sighing sought the sable tomb. 
Where he shall dream of joys no morej 
Nor of the grief of Poland's shore. 

Arid may not fair Columbia Won, 
By factious monsters be undone? 
May not the wealth of mighty few, 
Egregiously her fame undo? 
Or may not anti-monarch's own 
The legal right as Albion's throne? 
Great God forbid Columbia's bloom 
Should ever find a Poland's tomb. 



Whene'er 1 see a hypocrite, 

Professing love to God and mauj 
And view him read the Holy Writj 

The truths of charity to scan; 
Then view him shun the needy poor. 

Nor with the sorrowful condole, 
I set a black mark on his door, 

And call it palsy of the soul. 



356 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD, 



luliimn. 



These lines are inscribed to the two Misses Skinner, of tlie Wilmington Cemetery, 
who presented me some Autumn flowers. 



Oh! melancholy season of the year, 

How sad and solemn is thy tale of grief; 

A lesson in thy mournful winds I hear, 
A sermon read in every falling leaf. 

The voice of buried years, I hear in thee 

Time's footsteps, as he steals my hopes away; 

The sighing of each blast but brings to me, 
The recollection of my own decay. 

Ah! when 1 look back on the tide of time, 

And see the ruins of my earlier years; 
The wrecks of happiness and hopes sublime, 

I sigh, and sadly turn away in tears. 

As fall the leaves around me, one by one, 

So have the friends of youth dropp'd from my side; 

Like wither'd leaves they to the grave have gone, 
Like faded flow'rs they dwindled, droop 'd and died. 

But, Autumn, thou hast charms — in thy lone bowers, 
Pale contemplation loves to muse alone; 

On joys departed, and on by-gone hours, 
When o'er the heart hope's radiant rainbow shone- 

Oh! when upon these Autumn flow'rs I gaze, 
I think of hopes that in oblivion sleep; 

And from the joyous dream of other days 
I wake, alas! to wander and to weep. 

There is a gloomy grandeur in thy scene, 
Oh! Autumn — in thy golden tinted woods; 

Thy mournful voice, and withering leaves, 1 ween, 
And sullen, solemn silence of thy floods. 

But far, far more 1 love the voice of Spring, 
Emblem of youth, and mother of fair flow'rs; 

1 love her brooks and bow'rs, and birds that sing 
A welcome to sweet Summer's joyous hours. 



LOVE A LA MODE, 



OR 



C|e §0atman's Ja«gl]tfr. 



mot 



CHAPTER I. 

" Oh ! many a shaft, at random sent, 
Finds mark the archer little meant ; 
And many a word at random spoken, 
May soothe or wound a heart that's broken. 



H! mother, dear mother, do not, I conjure you, 
say anything more to me on that subject. I 
cannot bear it — indeed, indeed it will drive me 
to distraction." 

" Why, Charles, Charles, what do you mean ? 
I cannot comprehend you of late.— You, who 
but a short time ago, were gay and happy, and 
the life of every circle, have now become gloomy, 
abstracted, and illy inclined to bear the least 
raillery. Come, come, Charles," continued his 
mother, after a pause, "cheer up, for you can- 
not but confess that Caroline Bently is the 
loveliest of her sex ; and then her splendid for- 
tune — " 

" But, I do not want her fortune, mother." 
"Do not want her fortune!" exclaimed his 
her, with surprise, as she suddenly dropped his hand. "Why?" 
Mother, it is useless to say why." 




[Note. — A few days ago, I received a letter from a charming and accom- 
plished lady, at Pennington, New Jersey, in which she requested, for a friend, 
"a definition of the word love, or the nature and effects of it." She says — "I 
did not feel adequate to the task myself, and knowing no person who could so 
well define the term, or write a disquisition on it, as yourself, I thought it 
would not be amiss to request you to do it. I fancy I can see you lay down 



358 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. 

"But, Charles, my dear son, I insist on your answering why 
you do not want the fortune of the loveliest girl in America, and 
one, too, before whose beauty the proudest and the wealthiest of 
the land have bowed down. What objection can you have to so 
lovely a creature, who has rejected more than one advantageous 
match on your account?" 

"I have no particular objection," returned Charles, with a con- 
fused and dejected look. "Miss Bently, I own, is beautiful, ac- 
complished and wealthy, but — but — " 

"But what, dear Charles?" enquired his mother, gently laying 
her hand upon his shoulder. 

"I do not love her, mother." 

"Do not love her! Do not love her!" exclaimed Madame De 
Beaumont, drawing back from Charles, as if a serpent had crossed 
her path. "You do not love the rich, the beautiful, the accom- 
plished, the angelic Caroline Bently, on whom I have set my 
whole heart! — You do not love her! Upon my word, this is 
gratitude for all my care and kindness," and as she spoke the last 
words, she bent upon him a look of withering scorn, that pierced 
his very soul. 

"Forgive me, dearest mother; I cannot help it." 

"Away, you ungrateful wretch — you cannot help it!" repeated 
his mother, with bitter irony. "You cannot help it, but you can 
prate for hours about devotion of the heart, and the purity of love, 
and — and — " 

"Nay, be calm, dear mother; sit down, and let us reason to- 
gether. Love, courtship and marriage, are three steps in life which 
should be well considered before they are taken, for they lead to 
an earthly heaven, or an earthly hell." 

"Oh! yes, you are beginning with your philosophy to prove 
that black is white, and I suppose you are going to prate about 
simple, disinterested, unaffected love in a cottage, and all that sort 
of thing; but you cannot love Caroline Bently, the loveliest, the 
richest, and most accomplished of high-born ladies. — Mark me, 

your pipe, with all possible surprise, and in utter amazement, read such a re- 
quest from me; but you must not think, though years have rolled by, 'and 
mingled with the dim ages of the past,' that I have forgotten the pleasant hours 
that we have spent in your own loved home. If you can conveniently comply 
with my request, and choose to publish a Disquisition on Love, you will 
oblige," &c. 

Such was the lady's request, and believing that a tale would better elucidate 
the subject than an essay, I have, consequently, chosen that manner, under the 
title of Love a la Mode, or The Boatman's Daughter.] 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 35'J 

Charles," and she shook her finger as she spoke, "I have seen 
you, of late, wasting your time with that poor, awkward, graceless 
thing, the boatman's daughter — if you ever dare to bestow one 
look of favor on her, you shall rue the day that you did it." 

"It is useless to denounce vengeance on your son, my dear 
mother, for to tell you the unvarnished truth, I cannot love Caro- 
line; and would you wish to see me wed a woman I do not love, 
and drag out a life of bickering, disgust and misery!" 

Charles started at the threat of his mother, but she did not mark 
his emotion. 

•'My dear child," continued his mother, in a softer tone, and 
with a sunnier look, in the hope of winning him over, "I cannot 
see the reason that you reject so charming a girl, who loves you 
devotedly; who only awaits your wish to become your wedded 
wife, and for whose smiles many a heart aches." 

"Dearest mother, I have ever looked up to you for guidance in 
all things but that of choosing a wife." 

"And why not in that, Charles,?" 

" For the best reason in the world — it is impossible to love 
whom we please — love is altogether involuntary." 

"Believe me, Charles, such doctrine is idle and foolish." 

"Stop, my dear mother; did I not hear you say that to aggra- 
vate my father, when he was your lover, you endeavored with all 
your might to love his rival, or rather his opponent, and that the 
harder you tried, the less you loved him ?" 

"Pshaw! that was mere idle talk," answered Madam De Beau- 
mont, endeavoring in vain to hide her confusion : " but what proof 
have you, Charles, that love is involuntary?" 

"Ample proof, madame. If it be not involuntary, why is it that 
the heart is carried captive at the first glance, at the very first 
sight of the person, before we have had time to form any estimate 
of the character ; before we have had even time to examine the 
form and features: before we have formed the wish to love, and in 
fact, before we have discovered that we are in love ? How many 
persons fall in love, and go sighing in solitude, while they wonder 
what in the world can be the matter with them ? — How could that 
be, if love be voluntary, the creature of our will?" 

"Very good, Mr. Sophist," said his mother sneeringly, and 
with a perplexed look ; " but can you prove that any man might 
not, almost without an effort, fall in love with Caroline?" 

"It is true," returned Charles, forcing a smile, and using what 
the French call a double entendre; "anyone might fall in love 



360 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

with her without an effort; for, as I said, love is involuntary. The 
fact is, to esteem a person, we must in the first place examine 
qualities, and appreciate the person for the possession of those 
qualities ; but we often love without this routine, and hence love 
is involuntary. We love without thinking or wishing to do so, 
therefore it is involuntary." 

"But, my son, can you not look upon all the various charms of 
Caroline, both of person and property, and cultivate a love for her?" 

"That," said Charles, musing, "would only be the esteem I 
mentioned, and there is the difference between esteem and love. 
Reason and love are ever at variance — there is no sympathy be- 
tween them. I respect, I esteem Miss Caroline Bently, as much 
as any man, for my esteem is the consequence of reasoning upon 
her good qualities ; but I do not love her, because love is not the 
offspring of either reason or esteem. We often love the object 
whose qualities and character we detest. In this way do we ac- 
count for the many strange matches that take place in the world — 
love is involuntary, and the heart is fixed upon one who is detested 
by all the rest of the world." 

"Well, sir, as you are so flippant at defining things, will you 
favor me with the proper meaning of the word, LoveV 

" My dear mother, love is the electric fluid of the heart. It is a 
species of mysterious Mesmerism, or sympathy of the soul. 
Though we cannot will our souls to love, yet when one heart is 
charged, it can by sympathy, communicate its power gradually to 
another negative heart, as is the case in courtship. Love is truly a 
mysterious power. We can no more will ourselves to love a hu- 
man being, than we can will our hearts to feel, or be filled with the 
love of God. Friendship is founded on esteem, and is cultivated." 

"Yes, Charles, and love is founded on esteem, and if you do 
not love the lovely Caroline, it is your own fault." 

"Friendship," returned Charles, " is the cultivated flower of the 
garden, while love is the wild flower springing spontaneously in 
the forest or lonely wild. Love is a mysterious sympathy between 
two souls, which is felt, but cannot be described or understood." 

At this moment some company entered the parlor, and inter- 
rupted the conversation, much to the relief of Charles. 




WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 361 



CHAPTER II. 

" In sooth, I know not why I am so sad : 
It wearies me — you say it wearies you, 
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, 
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, 
f am to learn."— Shakspeare. 

|HE personages spoken of in the former chapter, were 
part of a very wealthy and aristocratic family from Eng- 
land, who. during the period of which I write, resided 
in a very splendid mansion in the suburbs of Wilming- 
ton. Madame De Beaumont was the wife of a French gentleman, 
who, being of an easy, good nature, resigned nearly all his pre- 
rogatives to his bettei- half, satisfied with petticoat government, 
provided he were suffered to jog on in his own pleasures, which 
consisted mainly in literary and scientific pursuits. When seated 
in his library, surrounded by his books, he cared not how other 
people amused themselves, so that they did not interfere with his 
philosophic experiments and literary researches. Madame De 
Beaumont had imbibed from English society all that spirit of ex- 
clusiveness, which is found among the nobility; for her great 
wealth and high connections had given her a passport to the ultra 
aristocratic circles, and there was no feeling of pride in her 
bosom, paramount to that of wealth, but that of birth. Her son 
Charles, a handsome, intellectual and intelligent young man, was 
the idol of her soul, and she had long cherished the idea of a 
union between him and his cousin Caroline, whose only parent, 
her father, had left her with large English possessions, to the care 
of Madame De Beaumont. 

Caroline Bently was truly a beautiful young lady, if silks, satins, 
diamonds, and every adornment could render her such. She held 
a high head, and had long secretly entertained the hope that 
Madame De Beaumont would prove successful in winning over 
Charles to the desired union. She loved Charles deeply, which 
passion had grown with her growth, and strengthened with her 
strength. Charles De Beaumont had imbibed very different no- 
tions from those of his mother; but knowing her imperious will, 
he had endeavored to cultivate an affection for Caroline, though 
he found, at last, that the more he strove to love her, the less was 
his heart inclined to bear the silken chain. Charles detested the 
hollow-hearted, conventional forms of society, and had no admi- 
ration for that artificial beauty which is so often found in high life. 
46 



362 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

He loved nature and despised art, when intended to disguise na- 
ture. He admired the chaste loveliness of the wild flower of the 
field or woodland, more than the forced and sickly, though more 
gorgeous rose of the hot-house. In short, he loved natural sim- 
plicity, and "beauty unadorned," as it is sometimes found in 
humble life, in preference to that gaudy, studied, and ornamental 
beauty, which is found in the sumptuous halls of grandeur. Never 
were mother and son more dissimilar. Madame De Beaumont 
loved wealth, pomp and grandeur, and prided herself on her birth. 
She could not bear the idea that her son should even cultivate a 
friendship for one who was beneath him in birth and fortune. 
Charles, on the contrary, was inclined to value persons according 
to their inherent sterling qualities, and not according to extraneous 
circumstances. He could prize beauty, though found in a cottage, 
and give virtue its value, though seen under an humble garb. The 
great fault with Charles was that he acted too much from the im- 
pulse of the moment, without stopping to consider the propriety 
of the movement, or giving the subject that due degree of atten- 
tion that is often necessary. 

Not far from the Delaware River, and about equi-distant from 
the Brandywine, there stood, at that time, a little cottage, em- 
bosomed in fruit trees and flowering vines, not a vestige of which 
now remains. The tooth and the tide of time have undermined 
it, and it has long since passed away, with all its joyous days, 
happy hearts, and moonlight scenes — passed away like the hopes 
of those hearts. 

In that little shady cottage, surrounded with flowers, bloomed a 
rose as beautiful and as blissful as any that ever bloomed or was 
blasted. It was the happy home of Johnny, the Boatman, by 
which name he was universally known in Wilmington and the sur- 
rounding country. His family consisted of but himself, his wife, 
and daughter Jane, the last of whom was idolized by her old 
father and mother, and many a sportsman when passing, called 
for a drink of water, as an excuse for feasting his eyes on the 
purely natural charms of Jane, for she was not indebted to art for 
one line or lineament of her beauty. Jane was truly the child of 
nature. She was but sixteen, and often wondered why the gay 
and grand young gentlemen from town, as she called them, lin- 
gered so long to admire the flowers around the cottage, little 
knowing, poor girl, that she was the beautiful flower that attracted 
their (jaze. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 363 

Never, perhaps, was there a happier family than that of old 
Johnny, the boatman. They were humble, and their wants were 
few, which were easily supplied by the little trade the old man 
carried on by means of his boat. All that he made, over and 
above his expenses, was carefully laid up as a marriage portion for 
Jane, should some worthy fellow claim her hand. 

.Tane Wordley was cast in the loveliest mould of nature. There 
was nothing artificial in her beauty ; all was natural, whether in 
relation to her mind or person. In disposition, she was gentle as 
a fawn, and lively as the birds that sang their matin hymns around 
the cottage. Her large, melting and jnelancholy eye, that was as 
dark and dazzling as that of the gazelle, seemed to possess a 
magic, Mesmeric power, and to pierce the soul at every glance. 
There was a peculiar expression in her face, that few could behold 
without feeling its influence on the heart. Her form was of the 
middle stature, light and graceful, and her auburn hair hung in 
clustering curls round a neck so fair, that it looked semi-trans- 
parent, like wax. 

It was on a beautiful morning in May, that Charles De Beau- 
mont anxiously stole away from the splendid parlor, in which 
Madame De Beaumont and Caroline were seated, to lose amid the 
solitudes of nature, the recollection of the importunities of his 
mother, who seemed fixed irrevocably in her determination that 
Charles should marry Caroline. Charles had endeavored, with all 
his soul, to love his cousin Caroline, and finding efl'orts vain, was 
now ever studious to avoid a contact. He wandered, with his 
gun, over fields, meadows, and through woodlands, musing upon 
the unhappy situation in which he was placed. 

Wearied at length with his pursuit, he stopped at the cottage of 
the boatman, little expecting to behold one who was destined to 
decide his fate ; for he knew nothing of Johnny, the boatman, or 
any of his happy little family. Just as he approached the cottage, 
his eye fell upon the figure of Jane, as she stood twining the vines 
of an arbor. Their eyes met, and in an instant Charles felt that 
his fate was decided. Like an electric spark, that glance went to 
his heart, and he felt that she was the beau ideal of his mind ; 
that she was the very realization of his dream of natural, simple, 
unaffecied beauty. To sum up all, Charles loved Jane at the first 
glance. He loved her as all love who act from impulse — he loved 
her with that deep, devoted, enthusiastic madness, that those love 
who calculate not consequences. — Often did he steal away from 
his fair cousin, the ijaudy and gorgeously attired Caroline, to feast 



364 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

his eyes on the simple, natural graces of Jane, whose beauty was 
in no degree indebted to art. So secret were his visits, that his 
haughty mother never dreamed that he had given his heart to the 
humble Jane, whom she had seen once or twice, when passing the 
cottage in her carriage. How would her proud spirit have spurned 
him, could she have even supposed it possible that her son, the 
heir of her wealth, and the descendant of the high family of the 
Spencers, would stoop to woo a poor boatman's daughter! But 
such was indeed the fact, and every time Charles visited the beau- 
tiful Jane, every moonlight interview they had, added strength to 
the affection he cherished. Enthusiastic in his nature, he was not 
only charmed, but enchanted with the simplicity, the pure, natural 
grace, and unaffected gentleness of the fair Jane. With only one 
dread on his mind, the dread of discovery by his mother, he luxu- 
riated in his love for the boatman's daughter, while he scorned the 
petty distinctions of society. From month to month he stole in- 
terviews with Jane, and time, with its golden hours, fled joyously 
away. 



CHAPTER III. 



" Was ever woman in this humor wooed ? 
Was ever woman in this humor won ?" — Shakspeare. 




OR shame, Charles!" said Madam De Beaumont, one 
morning, as Charles came into his mother's room. 
"You are unworthy of the lofty blood of the Spencers 
that flows in your veins. There is your cousin Caro- 
line, now in the parlor, who has been looking for your coming 
hour after hour." 

Charles started and colored as he spoke. "My dear mother, 
why do you harp upon that subject so often? I beg of you to — " 
"Harp upon that subject! Upon my word, that is a pretty 
speech to be addressed by a gallant young gentleman to his 
mother! Now, sir, I shall plead with you no longer, but use that 
authority that good fortune has delegated to me. Once for all, I 
wish to know whether you love Caroline ?' As Madame De Beau- 
mont spoke, she fixed her gaze upon him sternly, as if she would 
search his very soul- 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 365 

"Mother," replied Charles, with a downcast look, "I do not, 
I cannot love my cousin Caroline. I respect her, and feel a warm 
friendship for her, but I do not, I cannot love her; for, as I told 
you before, that passion is involuntary. — We are not masters of 
our own affections, and we cannot command the heart, to that 
matter, any more than we can command it in its throbbing." 

" Oh ! yes, all very pretty — some more of your high college-bred 
reasoning — some more of your sophistry; but I tell you, sir, it 
won't do. You must, you shall love your cousin, and you shall 
marry her, too, or you shall rue it the longest day you have to live." 

Madame De Beaumont exhibited temper and determination, in 
her countenance and compressed lips, as she spoke, while Charles 
appeared irresolute and perplexed. 

"Dearest mother," he at length said, seeming to be in a musing 
mood, as if something pressed heavily on his spirit, " it is my 
desire to do you honor, and to acquiesce in your wishes; but, in 
a case where a life of happiness or misery is concerned, I must 
strenuously insist on choosing the person whom I think most 
likely to conduce to my happiness." 

" But, pray, who is more likely — nay, who has greater means 
to conduce to your happiness, than your cousin Caroline? Is she 
not mistress of an ample fortune?" 

" Yes, mother, I own she is." 

"Is she not accomplished?" 

"She is." 

"And amiable?" 

" Yes, she is." 

" And very beautiful?" 

"Yes." 

" Well, what more in the name of heaven would you ask in any 
lady, to render you happy?" 

"Much more, mother." 

" And, sir, pray what is it?" 

" Why, mother, she lacks one thing, without the possession of 
which, I will marry no woman. If my cousin Caroline possessed 
that, I would consent to marry her this hour; but without it, as 
she is, I would not marry her though she were made of virgin gold, 
and every hair a diamond, of greater value than that of the Pitt 
diamond of England, or of that in the cabinet of Portugal." 

" In the name of all that is valuable," exclaimed his mother, 
"what can that great thing be, that she does not possess?" 



366 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"My own heart, mother, and would you bid me marry a woman 
I do not love? Would you, for the sake of more lucre, have me 
to drag out a life of misery and disgust?" 

"Disgust indeed!" replied his mother, scornfully. "And is 
there any disgust in Caroline? To tell you the truth, sir, you 
should be proud that she stoops to an alliance with you, after such 
ungallant conduct." 

" Pardon me, my dear mother, for I am truly sorry that I cannot 
love my cousin Caroline, for if I could, her wealth would not in- 
fluence me in the least. If I loved her, I would as soon marry 
her without it as with it." 

"I don't understand you, sir. Tf you mean to say that you 
would marry a poor obscure girl, and bring a tag-rag into the 
family of the Spencers to disgrace it, I bid you beware! I would 
rather see your head under the fence — I would rather follow you 
to the grave, than see you wed beneath you." 

"But, mother, there is wealth enough in the family." 

Madame De Beaumont had heretofore been endeavoring to 
suppress her temper, but now it boiled over. 

"Don't presume, sir, to calculate on the wealth of the family, 
for you must know, sir, that there is none in the family but what 
is mine — my own maiden property — and now mark me, sir. If 
you presume to marry any poor, low-bred girl, as your romantic 
notions of simplicity seem to incline you" — she spoke the last 
words with the most scornful emphasis — "you shall never touch 
one penny. No, sir, if you marry any other than your cousin 
Caroline, of whom you are not now really worthy, you may, in 
the language of the play, ' go, get brats, and starve.' " 

This language, from his mother, roused the spirit of Charles, 
and, as he spoke, his eyes flashed fire. 

" Your threats, Madame," said he, " will never alter my determi- 
nation, where a compliance with your wishes would doom me to 
a life of misery. Oh! that a mother, for the sake of mere lucre, 
should consent to blast the happiness of her child ! Give me 
poverty with contentment, rather than splendor with an aching 
heart." 

" Uno-ratcful son!" exclaimed Madame De Beaumont, bursting 
into tears from mere vexation. " Is this the return you make for 
all my care — for all my anxiety?" 

" Be calm, my mother, and let us reason together. A subject 
of so much importance, should not be lightly considered. Do 
vou, can vou wish to see your son pining in wretchedness?" 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 367 

"No, my son," said Madame De Beaumont, softening in her 
tone and temper, "it is my desire to see you happy, that prompts 
me to induce you to wed Caroline, who sincerely loves you, and 
whose feelings have been often wounded at your seeming coldness. 
She fancies that you avoid her, and has noticed the sigh, that 
swelled your bosom, at the moment that she was endeavoring to 
excite happy thoughts in your mind. Come, Charles, throw to 
the winds these foolish, romantic notions, you have, of love in 
a cottage ; of natural beauty, simplicity and such nonsense, and 
be a man. Go into the parlor to your lovely cousin; fall gracefully 
on one knee before her, as your father once bowed before me; 
take her fair hand, and while you ask her forgiveness for your 
former neglect, tell her you love her, like a man." 

" Oh! mother, I cannot," exclaimed Charles, with a deep sigh. 

"You cannot! There it is again. Had ever mother such a 
son! But you must, you shall be happy, against your will — come 
along, I'll lead you to the charmer." 

Madame De Beaumont took Charles playfully by the arm, and 
he followed her mechanically to the parlor. He had never been 
so stubborn and resolute before, and his mother could not account 
for his increased sadness of late. Fascinated by the native sim- 
plicity, the natural beauty, and unaffected manners of the boatman's 
daughter, he loved her to madness; and as he admired her for 
these perfections, as he fancied them, the artificial beauty, (he 
affected manners, and conventional notions of Caroline, disgusted 
him. Caroline saw that Charles, within a few months, had under- 
gone a great change. He had always been distant to her, but 
now he had lost that gay and lively manner he oflce had in her 
presence, and seemed to be laboring with some thought that ab- 
sorbed his whole soul. 

" Cheer up, Charles," said Caroline, whose brow was bound 
with dazzling diamonds, "why do you look so sad?" and she 
caught him playfully by the hand, as she spoke. 

'• Oh! yes, cheer up, Charles," repeated his mother, " you ought 
to love your cousin in consideraiion of her kindness, for many a 
lady fair would discard you, as an uncourteous knight. Take her 
hand, and pledge her your heart." 

"Oh! mother," gasped Charles, with great emotion, "don't 
drive me to distraction. If you urge this suit, I am the veriest 
wretch that ever lived." 

"In the name of heaven, why do you act thus?" demanded 
Madame De Beaumont — " Will you ever continue to refuse the 



368 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

cup of bliss, that is tendered to your lips by those who sincerely 
love you?" 

"For God's sake taunt me no more," exclaimed Charles, as he 
rushed, like a madman, from the house, and left Madame De 
Beaumont and Caroline in amazement, unable to account for his 
strange conduct. 

Charles, as was his wont, when any thing distressed him, fled 
to the wild and sublime solitudes of nature, to commune with 
himself. He knew the determined spirit of his mother, and that 
if he married any one against her consent, poverty would be his 
doom; and if he married a girl in humble life, his mother's curse 
would rest upon him. In the first case, he did not hesitate a 
moment; but the thought of thwarting his mother's ardent hopes, 
and of bringing down upon himself a mother's curse, however 
unreasonably it might be, was painful to his soul. So much did 
his contending thoughts prey upon his spirit, that he looked hag- 
gard, and often absented himself whole days from his sumptuous 
home, where, though surrounded with every comfort, he was still 
wretched. 

Little did the gay and gaudy Caroline, and the proud and 
pompous Madame De Beaumont dream, that Charles had seen 
and loved the boatman's daughter. Neither of them would have 
deigned to have vouchsafed her a passing smile or word of recog- 
nition, and the thought of welcoming her as a daughter and a 
companion, would have been spurned with heart-scorning contempt. 
So aristocratic, so exclusive was Madame De Beaumont, that she 
would rather have seen her only darling son enveloped in his 
shroud, and laid in his coffin, than married to one in humble life, 
as she had often told him. 

No wonder, then, that Charles was uneasy in mind, when thus 
placed upon the horns of a dilemma. He loved his mother de- 
votedly, and it pained him to offend her; but, on the contrary, he 
loved the beautiful Jane with all the enthusiasm of a first and 
<lisinterested passion, and would sooner wed her without a penny, 
than his cousin Caroline with all her hoards of glittering wealth, 
and all her grandeur. To marry Jane, was an easy matter, he 
knew; but oh! how could he disclose the fact to his mother? 
The very thought drove him to distraction; he could not bear to 
dwell upon it. 




WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 369 



CHAPTER IV. 

" Speak, speak, love, I implore thee, 
Say, say, hope shall be thine, 
Thou, thou, know'st that I love thee, 
Say but that thou wilt be mine ! 
Yes, yesj yes, yes, say but that thou wilt be mine." — Sono. 

)IME moved on, like an irresistible tide that bears away 
every thing on its bosom. Spring came, decked and 
adorned with gay flowers, like a young bride in her 
beauty; and summer came on, with glorious manifesta- 
tions of green woods, and fields of golden grain, and still Charles De 
Beaumont continued to be a sly visitor at the cottage of Johnny 
the boatman; honest, upright Johnny, as many persons called him. 
His daughter's charms were the theme of every dashing fellow 
whose eye had feasted on the luxury of her beauty — that beauty 
for which she was indebted to nature alone. She had received 
few, if any, of the accomplishments which belong to high life, but 
her natural, simple graces amply atoned for the loss of them. Her 
voice — Oh! it was exquisite! — Her very tones, in speaking, were 
music that melted in melodious harmony on the ear, like the full 
chords of an organ; and when she sung, every ear was enchained 
and charmed, for there was a gushing pathos; a mournful, melting 
cadence; a melancholy, soul-touching expression, that opened 
the deepest fountains of feeling in the heart, and awoke memory 
from the dreams of other days. 

It was on a charming moonlight night, in June, when all nature 
was arrayed in her richest robes, that Charles stole forth, once 
more, to escape the importunities of his mother; to avoid the 
smiles of his cousin Caroline, and to seek her, whose society he 
now felt was his only earthly happiness. He had loved the boat- 
man's beautiful daughter at first sight, and so deeply, so devotedly 
did he love her, that he did not, could not, would not conceive 
that he could ever love her less, though he knew that his passion 
was the impulse of the moment. But though he felt that he was 
beloved in return, he was far from being happy, for truly has Shak- 
speare said, that 

"The course of true love never did run smooth." 

His mother was res6lved, as she said, to keep wealth in the 
family, and to do this, she had determined that he should marry 
his cousin Caroline, which he was equally determined to avoid. 

47 



370 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

From this dilemma he must extricate himself, by clandestinely 
marrying the boatman's daughter; which, he knew, would bring 
down poverty, ruin, estrangement, and the vengeance of his 
mother, on his own head; or he must submit to the imperious 
will of Madame De Beaumont; wed a woman he did not love, 
and be doomed to a life of indifference, if not of disgust. In vain 
he endeavored to shut out the disagreeable subject from his mind, 
and he sickened at the thought that, while every thing was brilliant 
and beautiful around; while every thing in nature was bursting 
into bloom and beauty; he was gloomy, sad, miserable. 

While Charles was sauntering along beneath the bright moon, 
and musing on the fixed resolve of his mother to render him 
wretched, sweet, silvery notes broke upon his ear, more exquisite 
than those that are breathed from the -iEolian harp. So intent 
had he been upon the thoughts that agitated his bosom, that he 
had not noticed his near approach to the boatman's cottage. He 
listened — It was the well known voice of Jane; she was singing 
a sentimental song. He approached nearer to the bower, in which 
she was sitting, and discovered, through the vines, that her lovely 
face was turned upwards towards the moon, on which her dark, 
dazzling eyes were fixed. He stood, and listened intently, as she 
sang the following stanza, 

"Sweet moon, thou'st witness'd every vow ^ 

1 breath 'd to Charles so dear ; 
And thou shalt be a witness now, 

To fond affection's tear; 
For oh! that tender tear is shed, 

At thought that we must part; 
That he a high-born maid may wed, ■ 

And leave a broken heart." 

"Ha! what mean those lines?" he enquired, as he suddenly 
emerged from his concealment, and startled the fair Jane. 

"Oh! Charles, how you frightened me!" she exclaimed. 

"And how sad you made me, by that melancholy strain," re- 
joined Charles, as he advanced, took her hand, and sat down 
beside her. 

"Dearest Charles, I have been thinking seriously of what you 
proposed when we last met, and think that it would be better for 
us both that we should — should — " 

"Should what, my pretty coquette?" he enquired, supposing 
she was indulging the coyness peculiar to her sex. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 371 

" Why, indeed Charles, I can hardly tell you, for the very though t 
pains me to the heart. But had we not better part, and endeavor 
to obliterate all the past feelings that we have too fondly indulged?" 
"Then you have ceased to love?" 

" No, Charles, no; I can never cease to love you, for it is natural 
to love those that love us; and though, as you say, we cannot love 
whom we please, yet when we are beloved, it becomes infectious 
like disease; we catch it from those who love us. Thus by a 
mysterious attraction my soul was drawn to yours, and by some 
magic, Mesmeric influence, my heart caught the infection of your 
own, and the more I have struggled against it, the more deeply 
I have loved you." 

"How then, oh! Jane, how can you propose a separation?" 
" Charles, listen to me seriously," said the fair girl, as she flung 
back her clustering curls with one hand, and laid the other gently 
on his, " listen to me seriously, for you know that I would not 
propose any thing that would in any way harm you. You belong 
to an aristocratic family — you move in the highest circles of so- 
ciety — " 

" Oh! mention not the accursed conventional forms of society," 
interrupted Charles, " for I hate, I detest every thing artificial." 
■ "But, Charles, let me tell you the truth. You belong to a high, 
proud, wealthy family — I am the daughter of a poor boatman; I 
have never been accustomed to the fashion, etiquette and grandeur 
that belong to aristocratic life; and, though I have read of them, 
I should but ill become the graces that are necessary to a member 
of such society. Unequal marriages are seldom happy. You are 
rich; I am poor — if you would be happy, you should marry one 
who is your equal in fortune, education and accomplishment." 

"Dearest girl, you are my equal, and far superior, in my eyes, 
to the gilded butterflies that flutter in artificial life. Oh! Jane, it is 
because you are the child of nature — it is because you are not the 
artificial, ephemeral thing of aristocratic hollow-hearted life — it is 
because your pure feelings and affections are unpolluted by the 
interested motives that govern the society you mentioned, that I 
love you. Yes, your high, holy, heavenly charms, would grace 
any circle, however proud, polished or pure." 

"Ah! Charles, think of your mother's wishes, and of the duty 
you owe her as your parent! Should you marry a poor plebeian — 
a dowerless, unpolished, uneducated girl in low life, like myself, 
you will incur the vengeance of your mother — you will be dis- 
owned, disinherited, and — " 



ii72 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

" Then, my sweet Jane, one great objection to our union will 
be removed — if I am disinherited, I shall be placed upon a level 
with you — we shall both be poor. And believe, dearest, poverty 
with you, will be far preferable to opulence and splendor with one 
of the artificial beauties of high life. Yes, Jane, a hollow tree 
for a home, and bread and water for food, with one like you, would 
be far more agreeable than a palace, and the loaded tables of 
luxury, with my cousin Caroline. Think of it ! the same blood 
that circulates in her veins, runs in my own ; yet my mother, cursed 
with the inordinate love of lucre, and to keep fortune in our family, 
would bind me to a relative; to a cousin, whom I love not. Oh! 
think what a doom ! Save me from it, lovely Jane, by taking the 
heart and hand that never, willingly, can be Caroline's." 

"Ah! my dear Charles, heaven is witness that I pity your situ- 
ation, but I fear the consequences, should I consent to a union." 

"What consequences can you fear, Jane?" enquired Charles. 

" The resentment of your own family, Charles," returned the 
sweet girl, as she gazed tenderly and sadly in his face. "And 
then you have not calculated the result of your hasty passion, 
that has sprung from the impulse of a moment. I fear you have 
not coolly considered how evanescent such impulsive passion may 
prove. Think how cruel a circumstance it would be — how it 
would rend both our hearts with agony, should either of us repent — 
when repentance would be too late — that we had acted so pre- 
cipitately, so rashly, in uniting our destinies." 

"No, never will I repent," he resolutely exclaimed. "Perish 
the thought that I should ever repent of having taken her to my 
arms, who is dearer to me than all the world beside." 

"Ah! Charles you do not know how soon the romance of love 
would give way to solemn reality, and how quickly she, who before 
marriage was more than an angel, would dwindle into less than a 
woman. Such is often the case with the imaginative mind." 

The fact was now, the more he conversed with the lovely being 
before him, the more ardently he loved her; for she was a girl of 
good natural talents, and had, by reading, stored her mind with 
much useful knowledge, though she would have been considered 
awkward in the beau monde, as she had never mingled in the gay 
circles of fashionable life. She was not deficient in solid, sterling 
sense, though the ways of the gay, aristocratic, and senseless 
circle of society were as a sealed book to her. 

"Your objections can all be removed," said Charles, after a 
pause. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 373 

" But there are others," she observed; " there are other equally 
weighty reasons that we should, at least, refrain from the rash, 
irrevocable step of marriage, if not to forget the unfortunate 
affection we have but too fondly cherished in our hearts." 

" And what are they, my beloved Jane ?" he enquired, with a sigh. 

" They are these. First, I cannot, at present, acquiesce in your 
wishes, without the consent of your parents; and, in the second 
place, without the consent of ray own. In the third place, I do 
not believe that the consent of either could be obtained ; and in 
the fourth place, neither they nor I would wish to sacrifice your 
happiness, your fortune, perhaps your life, by such an unequal, 
unjust, and unpromising marriage. You are rich; you have been 
reared tenderly in high life; and if you Avere to attempt to intro- 
duce me, a poor, half-educated, awkward plebeian, into the proud, 
polished circles, in which all your family move, do you not see 
that it could be productive of nothing but mortification and disgust 
on the part of your friends, and of misery to you and myself. 
Oh! Charles, think not that I care for myself! No, to render you 
happy, I could follow you through the world as your servant ; I 
could devote my whole energies, both of mind and body, to ensure 
and increase your bliss, but I cannot, I will not commit an act 
which would not only render you and your friends wretched in 
the end, but might blast me with the consciousness that I had been 
the sole cause of all your misery." 

"Cursed, cruel fortune!" exclaimed the unhappy lover. 

" On either side I see nothing but wretchedness in store for me ! 
Ah! Jane, lovely, idolized Jane, how can you thus blast all of 
happiness that remains to me? Never could I be unhappy in 
your arms. No, I swear by yonder silver moon, that has so long 
listened to our vows of love, that my affection can never cease or 
diminish, till my heart shall cease to pulsate forever, and even in 
death my last sigh shall be breathed to her who now so coldly 
consigns me to a far greater degree of misery than our united 
hearts could ever know. I have been told that when woman loves, 
she loves forever; but my Jane cannot love, or she would not thus 
doom me to a fate that I dread far more than death ; she would 
not throw me from her bosom like a worthless weed, content to 
see me forced by fate to wed the woman I cannot love, when she 
could so easily stretch her hand and save." 

Charles saw that Jane's arguments were too powerful for his 
own, and he appealed to pathetic language to touch her heart. 
He saw that he had touched the proper cord — she was weeping. 



374 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



and he knew that when a woman once suffers herself to argue 
the propriety of a measure, she is aheady half won. Clasping 
his hand in both of hers, she imploringly exclaimed, " Oh ! Charles, 
do not urge me further! Do not, I beseech you, induce me to 
consent to what I feel will be the ruin of us both. Spare me the 
fatal act, at least for a little season." 

" Well, then, be it so, beloved Jane. When we meet again, I 
hope these imaginary fears will have passed away, and that you 
will, with a smile, consent to make me the happiest of men." 

He arose, pressed the sylph-like form of the fair Jane to his 
bosom; and, for a moment, their eyes discoursed eloquently of 
that passion, which has been a puzzle alike to philosophers 
and fools. In that moment they enjoyed an age of the luxury of 
love, for their pure, young hearts had not yet learned the sordid 
arts and calculating meanness which characterize the human heart 
in after age. Their souls enjoyed that high and holy romance, 
which opens to the view a living landscape of loveliness; a brilliant 
ideal world of light, and love, and beauty. 



-^ — ♦ — *- 



CHAPTER V 




' Yes, 1 have set my heart upon this match, 
And thou shall wed her, whether thou wilt or not. 
nut soft! — I'll coax thee with a winning tongue, 
And woo thee to my purpose. The maid is fair, 
Yea ! very fair, and comely." — Old Pi.ax, 

r/f)y)HEN Charles had breathed adieu to the guileless, 
f/iAf\^ artless, innocent creature, in whose heart his imao-e 
^ ~ ' was eternally enshrined, and who had become the 
angel of his idolatry, he wandered slowly along the 
meadows, musing on the events of that night, and blessino- the 
generous nature of that fair girl, who, he felt, would not hesitate 
to sacrifice her own happiness to secure his. As he approached 
the splendid mansion, in the gorgeous parlor of which sat the 
glittering goddess whom his mother had chosen to preside over 
his fate, his thoughts turned to the destiny that eventually awaited 
him, if he did not avoid it by marrying another. 

"Oh! Love! Love!" mused he, " what a powerful deity thou art? 
No wonder that the ancients represented thee blind and naked, 
for blindly dost thou lead thy votaries, and destitute I fear will be 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 375 

the destiny thou wilt decree to me. If T marry Caroline, whom 
I do not love, I shall be able to clothe myself in purple and fine 
linen; but if I wed Jane Wordley, I shall be stripped of fortune, 
and sent naked, of wealth at least, into the world. Well be it 
so. Oh ! love, poverty even will be sweet where thou art, while 
without thee, grandeur, affluence, all that luxury can bestow, 
will be but glittering misery, and gaudy mockery. It is strange 
how sweetly, how swiftly the golden hours fly by, wh^n love leads 
me to Jane's bower ; and how lingeringly they move, when chained 
at the side of Caroline, where love is not. Love is the sweetener 
of human toil. For the smile of love, the weary laborer returns to 
his cottage, far happier than he, who for wealth has wedded the 
woman he did not love. For the one, there is peace and joy; a 
solace for all his cares; a balm for every woe, while for the other 
there is naught but bickering and disgust." 

Thus did he continue to muse, until he approached the win- 
dow, through which he saw Caroline seated, in company with a 
gentleman who had but recently become her suitor. He watched 
her, as with consummate art she levelled at him, one after an- 
other, all the artillery of her charms. The same artful manoeuvres, 
that she had used to captivate him, were now used to storm the 
castle of another's heart. He watched every heartless gaze of the 
practiced fair one, and compared her studied graces, and artificial 
charms, with the artless innocence, the simple winning manners, 
and natural beauty of the beloved Jane, and he felt that the one 
was as much transcended by the other, as the painted butterfly is 
by the beautiful bird of Paradise. 

Charles thanked Heaven that for that night he would be spared 
the martyrdom of a meeting, or at least the agony of a mock 
courtship. But he did not escape the terrible infliction of his 
mother's tongue; for, though he endeavored to creep up to his 
bed, she caught him on the stairway, and, in winning tones, de- 
sired or requested an interview, in her boudoir. Charles knew 
the nature of the infliction he was to undergo, for it had been fre- 
quent of late, and he followed her with a downcast wo-begone 
look, as the condemned criminal follows the headsman to the 
block. He shrunk from the scene, which he was certain would 
follow; but he made up his mind that he would make no exhibi- 
tion of his temper, but endeavor to prevail on her to concede to 
his prayers and tears, what she had so often denied to the powers 
of argument, and the demands of reason. He was, however, 
doomed to be disappointed in his most sanguine hopes, for she 
proved to be more determined than ever. 



376 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

"If you are determined to thwart my wishes, and deny what I 
have condescended to beg and plead for as a favor," said she, with 
a determined air, " I am resolved that you shall suffer for your 
shameful disobedience, as well as myself. If you dare to marry 
another, not only will you be disowned as a son, and driven from 
the happy home of your childhood ; but I solemnly swear that you 
shall never possess one dollar of the estate, which shall otherwise 
be yours. Nbw, sir, take your choice; you have the irrevocable 
decree, and you shall certainly go into the world a beggar, if I 
have to will my estate to charitable institutions." 

"Well, my dear mother," returned Charles, in a mournful tone, 
"my mind is made up, and your decree has gone forth, and it is 
useless to persecute your poor unhappy son any further." 

"You might be the happiest of men, Charles," said Madame 
De Beaumont, a little softened, "were it not for your stubborn 
disposition. An earthly Paradise is before you, but you obsti- 
nately refuse to enter it. You follow a phantom of fancy, while 
you pass by the reality unnoticed." 

"Ah! mother, you did not suffer your youthful affections to be 
crushed, by suffering your hand to go where your heart was not. 
Think, think of a life spent in the society of one to whom you 
are indifferent — think of the torture of lavishing the mere signs 
of counterfeited affection on one whom you do not, you cannot 
love — think of the loathing and disgust that must follow! In 
matrimony the absence of love is equivalent to hatred and disgust. 
You married for love, with your own free will, and you would 
have rebelled against that power which should have dared to dic- 
tate otherwise." 

This appeal rather staggered Madame De Beaumont, and in a 
subdued manner she again addressed him. 

"Well, well, my son, had I been placed in a similar situation — 
had a handsome, intelligent man, with a fortune equal to Caro- 
line's, been placed before me, and my mother had said, 'marry 
him,' I would have jumped at the chance. My dear son, no doubt 
I have irritated you by my endeavors for your happiness; calm 
yourself; you will think better of it after a while. You must look 
over my frequent importunities, for they are intended for your 
good. I would not willingly give one pang to your susceptible 
heart, for I know that, like myself, you cannot bear to be driven." 

Our hero was delighted with this mild language, and changed 
manner of his mother ; he seemed to hear, in her gentle tones, 
the harbinger of a happier fate. With a smile on his woe-worn 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 377 

countenance, he said — "Dear mother, do not urge me any more 
to wed my cousin Caroline. If I marry her, I never shall know 
one hour of happiness while I live." 

"Very well, my son, I will not attempt to force you, and I think 
I know you too well to suppose that you would disgrace yourself 
and family by an ignoble alliance. Why, Charles, what made you 
start?" 

"Nothing but an idle thought!" and with this explanation, 
they parted for the night. 

Charles, with a lighter heart, went to his bed ; but scarcely had 
he fallen asleep, ere a horrible dream haunted the visionary cham- 
bers of his brain. He dreamed that he had married fair Jane ; that 
he was attacked in some lonely spot, and that she was murdered 
in his arms. A change then came over the spirit of his dream — 
he seemed to have grown weary of her, whom he had loved — that 
he had employed an assassin — that his guilt was discovered, and 
he was thrown into a gloomy dungeon. Trembling with affright, 
he awoke, and passed away the night in gloomy reflections. 

The next morning, at the table, he told all the particulars of his 
dream, to his cousin Caroline and his mother, stating only that he 
was married to some strange lady, and they appeared to have been 
the cause of the murder. They laughed heartily at what filled his 
mind with gloomy forebodings. He remembered the countenance 
of the assassin — it seemed to be that of his own servant, whom 
he had brought from England. The more he attempted to shake 
off that gloomy vision, the more it haunted his recollection. 



CHAPTER VI. 

" Lovely woman, I adore thee, 
Thou to me appear'st divine : 
Grant my suit, I do implore thee, 
Let me ever call thee mine."— Sosa. 



)HE appointed evening for his visit to the cottage of the 
boatman rolled round, and as usual, he went in dis- 
guise to meet his beloved. He had been absent some 
days in Philadelphia, and that absence made him the 
more anxious to see his soul's idol. The moon had not risen, 
and he glided along, through the little skirt of woodland, unseen 
48 




378 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

by any eye. He gave the signal, but no response was given. 
What could be the reason, he could not tell. Had her father dis- 
covered their amour, and put a stop to it? He trembled with con- 
flicting thoughts, doubts and fears. He gave another low whistle 
— still it was not answered. He had just began to despair, when 
he saw her fairy form stealing through the embowering vines, near 
the cottage. The next moment she was locked in his arms. 

"Charles!" she exclaimed in a whisper, "you came a little 
before the time." 

"Love is always impatient," said he; "and now, dear Jane, 
every thing is in our favor. We will be married, and when it is 
gradually made known to my mother, all will be well." 

"Has she consented to the marriage, Charles?" 

"All is well," returned Charles, evasively. "Both your friends 
and mine will make no objection, when they discover that we are 
happy in each other's arms. Now, dearest Jane, fix, fix the happy 
day, when you will be mine." 

"I cannot, Charles, unless you will assure me that you have the 
full and free consent of your parents, and even then I ought to 
hesitate. I tremble for the result — 'indeed I do, Charles." 

"Oh! you are resolved to dash my brightest cup of bliss," said 
Charles, pettishly. " You seem never at a loss for frivolous excuses." 

"Pardon me, dear Charles. Indeed it is not my wish or will to 
give you a moment of pain, but think, oh! think of the step you 
would urge me to take! It is a serious one, and may bode evil to 
us both. Charles, do not be rash, I implore you." 

"Are you resolved to drive me to distraction. If you will not 
consent to render me happy, take this instrument of death and 
put a period to my misery at once," and as he spoke he presented 
a loaded pistol to her. She started and turned pale. 

"Oh! Charles," she exclaijued, "this incident brings to mind 
my dream last night, in which I saw you kill yourself." 

"And that will be ere long realized," he replied, "unless you 
consent to be mine. I will not live to wed the woman I do not, 
I cannot love. Take your choice, either to see me happy in your 
arms, or a corpse at your feet, ere yonder moon shall wane." 

"Dear Charles, you frighten me. I am trembling violently." 

"Oji! I will consent to any thing, rather than see you commit 
so rash an act. Do not, for heaven's sake, say so again." 

"Then you consent to be mine?" 

"Will you not, dear Charles, assure me of the consent of your 
mother?" enquired the fair girl, with an imploring look. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD- 379 

"Oh! yes, I will assure you of that. And now my gentle fair 
one, when shall that ceremony be performed, which will ensure 
me a life of happiness?" 

"Ah! you selfish man," returned Jane, playfully, "you do not 
then consult my happiness?" 

"Heaven is witness that I do, dearest, for it shall be the happi- 
ness of my life to render you happy." 

"But should you become weary of the boatman's daughter?" 

"My sweet angel, let not such foolish fancies haunt you. While 
life shall last, you will ever be as dear to me as now." 

Jane now wiped away her tears. Her mind had passed the 
great struggle, and she now resigned herself to the fate, that 
seemed irrevocable, with a cheerful spirit. 

'•'My birth-day," said she, taking Charles' hand, "is next Thurs- 
day, and on that day let the marriage rites be performed. But 
how can we manage to avoid detection ? If my father should de- 
tect us in the act of escaping, your life would be the forfeit, before 
the matter could be explained. Oh ! I tremble at the very thought 
of what I have promised in my love for you. For heaven's sake, 
Charles, do not forsake me when I have given up all claim to my 
father's protection." 

"Doubting again," said Charles. "Will you never have faith 
in one who would sooner perish than desert or deceive you. Be 
of good heart; all will be well. My servant, on that happy night, 
shall have my carriage ready at yonder skirt of woodland, where 
you will meet me, and then no power shall prevail against us. 
Before one hour shall have elapsed, from the moment we meet, 
you shall be forever mine, dearest. Put on the blue mantle that 
you wore when I first saw and loved you, and whie.i I admire so 
much." 

"Yes, Charles, I will wear any thing that will make me lovely 
in your eyes. And now, dearest, you assure me of your mother s 
consent, without reservation or equivocation?" 

"Oh! certainly, certainly — will you never have done doubting? 
When my love or sincerity shall fail, the stars themselves shall 
cease to shine. Oh! Jane, this is the happiest moment of my 
life — the brightest epoch of my care-worn existence! How bliss- 
ful to me is the prospect that lies before me, a long, long life of 
love and joy!" 

Charles was very sanguine, and, in the prospect of avoiding 
the marriage set apart for him by his mother, he was now as happy 
as he had been miserable. He was always on extremes. Partak- 



380 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

ing of the French character, he was extremely happy or extremely 
wretched; and acting from the impulse of the moment, he laid 
himself liable to these extremes. 

" Be ready at this hour, on the night you have appointed," con- 
tinued Charles, "and we will fly, on the wind, to a spot in my 
mind's eye, where the indissoluble knot shall be tied, which no 
man shall be able to put asunder." 

As he spoke, he clasped her to his bosom, in a long fond em- 
brace, and taking her hand, said — " Till we meet again, will be an 
age; but keep up your spirits, and do not let the thought frighten 
you, that you are about to throw yourself on the protection of one 
who is eternally devoted to you, and who would perish rather than 
betray." 

"I tremble when I think of it," returned Jane, "but I have 
given you my word, and nothing but actual force shall prevent me 
from fulfilling it." 

Again he pressed her to his bosom, and whispering a good 
night, left her standing like a statue on the spot, until distance 
hid her from his view. It would be vain to attempt to describe 
the feelings of that innocent, artless girl ; no language could por- 
tray the emotions that rent her bosom that night. Hope and fear 
alternately struggled for the mastery, and in vain she sought her 
pillow; the god, Morpheus, refused to visit her eye-lids with re- 
freshing sleep. 



CHAPTER VII. 

" He has told his tale 
And found that, when he lost his heart, he play'd 
No losing game ; but won a richer one ! 
There may you read in him, how love would seem 
Most humble when most bold ; 
In her you read how wholly lost is she 
Who trusts her heart to love." — Knowles. 

iHARLES De Beaumont was harassed in mind, as well as 
h the innocent and thoughtless Jane. But the day dawned 
on which he was to consummate his wishes, and he looked 
forward to the hour with an intense pleasure, mingled 
with an indescribable fear, which he endeavored to throw off. 
The spell of love is powerful, and over the mind of Charles, at the 
present moment, it held undivided sway. The picture, which his 




WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 381 

vivid imagination presented, captivated his soul, and he could see 
nothing before him but bliss; for he imagined that when he was 
married to Jane, and all was over, his mother would relent, and 
all would be well. Alas! how short-sighted is human nature! 
Though coming events are said to cast their shadows before, yet if 
we could see the consequences of the step we often take, how 
would we start, and tremble ere we take it. 

Werner, the servant whom Charles had brought from England 
with him, was the only person entrusted with the secret of the 
intended flight. He was a dark, mysterious man, who seemed 
fitted for any deed, and appeared to be delighted with any intrigue 
or stratagem that had mystery connected with it. 

Near the time appointed, he put the horses to the carriage, and 
with the greatest secrecy proceeded to the spot which had been 
designated. Charles proceeded alone, by a by-path, to meet 
Jane; who with tearful eyes and a throbbing heart, had been sit- 
ing at the cottage window, watching for the approach of him 
whom her soul loved to idolatry. The moon was just rising, when 
the signal agreed on faintly fell upon her ear. Her heart beat 
audibly — she trembled violently — she seemed bewildered; but 
knowing that hesitation might betray her, and to be betrayed at 
that moment would be ruin, she summoned all her resolution, and 
stole softly down the stairway. As she passed the sleeping apart- 
ment of her poor old parents, she hesitated ; her heart almost 
failed her, and she was on the point of returning to her room. 

"Can I thus desert them?" she mentally exclaimed; "can 
I thus wound the hearts of those who have ever devotedly loved 
me? What will they think of me — " 

At this moment the signal again fell upon her ear, and, from a 
window, she saw Charles near the cottage. 

"Oh! God," she again thought, "it is too late, now, to retrace 
my steps. It will never do to be discovered in the act of escap- 
ing, for the worst construction would be put upon it." 

The next moment the cottage door opened, and Charles clasped 
her in his arms, and bore her to the bower in which they had so 
often met. So great was her trepidation, at this moment, that she 
was ready to faint. 

"Be calm, my gentle Jane," said he, "you are in the protection 
of one who will ever love, and never desert you." 

"Oh! Charles," she exclaimed, gasping for breath, "how can I 
endure the separation ? How can I pain the hearts of my poor 
old parents? Charles, dear Charles, if I fly with you I am lost, — 



382 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

undone. Think, oh! think, what will be said of me, by a cruel 
world that has no mercy? — do not urge me to this." 

"Nay, dearest Jane," returned Charles, "do not suffer your 
fancy thus to alarm you ; believe me, it is only your fancy. Take 
courage, my beloved, and when we are married all will be well." 

"But, my dear Charles, something tells me that we are doing 
what is wrong, and that we shall both repent the step." 

"Pshaw, my little dreamer," cried Charles, "have you no cour- 
age; no mind of your own? Come, let's fly to him, who has the 
power to unite us forever in the holy bonds of wedlock." 

As he spoke he pressed her to his bosom; kissed her, and 
gently drew her along towards the carriage. So great was the 
trepidation of the affrighted girl, to whose mind imagination con- 
jured up a thousand terrific images, that she could scarcely walk 
with a steady step. Still greater were her emotions as he lifted 
her into the carriage, and scarcely had he ordered the postillion to 
drive on, ere she fainted in his arms. Having had an eye to this 
probable event, he had provided himself with the means, and by 
the application of them, soon restored her to consciousness, with- 
out permitting his servant to know anything of the matter. Jane 
now appeared more composed, the crisis of her emotion was 
passed, and she resigned herself to what was to follow. 

As the distance to the place where the parson lived was but a 
few miles, and the horses moved rapidly over the road, not much 
time elapsed ere they drew up at the door of him, who was des 
tined to unite, and thus doom two beings to hours of bliss, and 
days of anguish, that they little dreamed of. Could that reverend 
gentleman have looked into the future, and read all that was to be 
brought about by the deed which was to be consummated that 
night, he would have hesitated at least, if he had not refused, to 
tie the irrevocable knot. 

"Why so serious, dear Jane?" enquired Charles, while they 
were waiting at the door for the parson to dress and make his 
appearance. 

"Oh! Charles, I cannot tell you my feelings and my fears. My 
father, though poor and obscure, is a man of high spirit and vio- 
lent temper, and when he misses me, he will at once believe that 
I have been betrayed; and oh! should he, in his rage, pursue and 
find us, I know not what will be the consequence. I tremble at 
the thought of his vengeance." 

Even now it required the utmost persuasion to sustain the mind 
of Jane. She had little time, however, to demur: for the parson, 



"WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 383 

who had given a signal from the window, now made his appear- 
ance at the door; and it was with great difficulty Jane tottered 
from the carriage to the house, assisted by her lover. Pale and 
trembling, she stood with Charles before the reverend man, who 
naturally supposed that her emotions originated in the seriousness 
of the occasion. 

When they were married, she seemed more calm, and whis- 
pered in his ear — " Oh ! Charles, what have I done for your sake !" 

Then, as they proceeded to the carriage, she enquired, "Charles, 
would you have sacrificed so much for me?" 

"Have I not made a sacrifice, dearest Jane, for love of thee?" 
asked Charles, in turn. "Have I not braved " here he recol- 
lected himself, for he was about to say that he had braved the will 
of his mother, and thereby sacrificed the fortune he might have 
enjoyed with Caroline, had he not taken the present step. Know- 
ing that he had told Jane that he had obtained the consent of his 
mother to the marriage, he was thus debarred from meeting her 
sacrifice with a similar one. 

" What a lost, undone creature I am," said Jane, " if you now 
forget the vow which has been sealed in heaven this night." 

" Dearest Jane," said Charles, as he clasped her in his arms in 
the carriage, " let not your fancy any longer affright you. We are 
now one, in the sight of heaven. We have loved from pure dis- 
interested motives — from choice — from inclination, and nothing 
but death can ever dissolve the charm. We may be separated — 
we may be torn apart, by force — we may, by stern fate, be held 
asunder; but nothing but death can ever tear my heart — my affec- 
tions, from thee — nothing but death can ever cause me to forget 
my Jane, one moment. No, I am thine, and thine alone forever. 
You are the only woman I ever loved, and that love shall perish 
only with my life." 

This enthusiastic declaration soothed the mind of Jane, and 
they rode onward in perfect silence. 




384 "WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

" For if there be a human tear, 
From passion's dross refined and clear ; 
A tear so limpid and so meek ; 
It would not stain an angel's cheek; 
'Tis that which pious parents shed 
Upon a duteous daughter's head." — Scott. 

REAT was the excitement at the cottage of the boatman, 
when it was discovered that the idol of their hearts had 
fled. Jane did not, at the usual time in the morning, 
make her appearance, and when her mother went to her 
room, she discovered that she had fled, as, on searching, she 
found that she had taken her fine clothes with her. The old lady 
recollected having seen a young man suspiciously gazing at Jane, 
and from other remembered incidents, she concluded that she had 
been enticed away. 

Old Johnny, the boatman, was enraged, and would listen to 
nothing from his wife. He was in the habit of sporting; he kept 
a gun for ducks, and no sooner did he hear of the flight of Jane, 
than he seized his gun and swore he would go gunning. He was 
one of those fearless old men who care for nobody when wronged; 
and he started off with the intention of discovering the young 
man who had carried off" his daughter, and if he had betrayed her, 
to shoot him, or to make him marry her. 

He enquired of every one he met, but no one had seen the run- 
away fair one ; he searched in every place where he thought she 
would have gone ; but he sought in vain, and when he returned 
home at night, weary and dejected, and his passion subsided, he 
joined his poor old wife in vain regret and tears. 

"Oh! my poor, dear, lost child;" she exclaimed, "she has been 
deceived — I know she has, or she never would have forsaken her 
poor old mother in this way." 

"She's an ungrateful wretch," returned the old man, "and if 
she's deserted us for a good for nothing fellow, she may go; for 
she shall never darken my door again." 

"Don't say so, my dear," exclaimed the mother; "she's our 
child, and though she may have been cheated by some good for 
nothing fellow, I can never consent to forsake her. No, no ; if 
she comes back penitent to these old arms, her mother can never 
find it in her heart to forsake her." 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. H85 

"So you'd encourage a dozen such wretches to run away?" re- 
plied Johnny, as he placed his gun in the corner, "/say, as she 
makes her bed, so let her lie in it." 

The tears were stealing down the good old lady's cheeks, and 
she heaved a deep sigh, as she continued — ' Ah ! Johnny, we are 
all mortal ; all liable to do wrong; and if we don't forgive one an- 
other, how can we ask and expect mercy from our Father, who is 
in heaven ? I hope and pray that Jane is innocent; but if so be 
that she has disgraced herself, her old mother's arms will receive 
her, though all the world turn against her, and cry out shame. If 
she comes back sorry and crying, I couldn't shut the door against 
her, and — " . ;^>,-'v 

Here the old lady's heart became too^ full to speak, and she 
burst into tears, which so affected the old man, that though he 
was all unused to the melting mood, it required all the philosophy 
he was master of, to keep from weeping. 

" Well, well," said he, " this beats all that ever did come across 
me. Old Johnny, the honest boatman, as they call me, never ex- 
pected to have an ungrateful child. I never thought my daughter 
would disgrace me, and send my grey hairs in sorrow to the 
grave. She's an ungrateful girl, and, by George, I've a great 
mind to curse her." 

"Oh! don't, for mercy's sake," exclaimed the old lady, in a 
mournful, pathetic tone, that would have touched a heart of ada- 
mant; "don't curse your poor, weak child, for she never, till this 
day, did anything to make us unhappy. Poor thing, I know she'll 
be sorry for it, when she comes to her senses ! There never was 
a better girl, till she got the gold rings and other fine things, that 
she said a lady in town gave her; and then she began to sigh, and 
walk alone, and talk of high life." 

" Yes," returned Johnny, " the devil must have got her senses; 
and as to the rings and fine things, I always had a sneaking notion 
that a lady, with pantaloons on, gave them to her. You needn't 
tell me such trumpery, and I told you, long ago, that some of these 
dashing fellows were turning her brain. But you said, ' Oh ! no ; 
she's a girl of too good sense, to be caught with chaflT.' I said it 
would be so, but you wouldn't hear to it; and now where's your 
girl with such good sense?" 

This was more than the good old dame could bear, for she had 

the heart of a mother; and she fell into a fit of convulsive sob- 

ing and weeping. Oh ! how sacred is a mother's love ! — Though 

covered with shame, and forsaken by all the world, a mother's love 

49 



386 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Still clings to a lost and erring child. No distance can subdue it; 
no lime obliterate it ; no ingratitude estrange it — it lives on, amid 
the wreck of all else that is held holy ; still green when all else 
has perished. A mother's love, stripped of all the gross selfish- 
ness of the human heart, knows but one object; the object of its 
idolatry, and to that object it clings, free from all the cold, inte- 
rested motives of the world. 

She heeds not the causes that led to its fall, 

But she knows that she loves it, in spite of them all. 

Great was the curiosity among those who were acquainted in 
the household of Johnny, the boatman, to know what had become 
of his fair daughter; and many wondered; a great many more 
guessed ; yet all missed the mark. As Charles De Beaumont was 
often gone from home weeks at a time, and as his aristocratic 
family did not deign to spend a thought on such plebeian person- 
ages and their concerns, a knowledge of the absence of Jane was 
not likely to reach their ears, and if it did, was not likely to be 
noticed. Hence they did not dream that Charles had gone off 
with Jane Wordley, much less that he had married in low life, as 
they called it. 



CHAPTER IX, 



"Thy look alone awakens fear, 
I will not of the future hear; 
You will not? Maiden you shall know 
Your onward path is track'd in woe." 




)NTIL Charles had left the parson's house, he had never 
thought of the place to which Jane was to be carried, 
after marriage; for he dared not carry her to his 
home, without breaking the matter to his mother; nei- 
ther could he take her to her own home, for a similar reason. 
Here was the short-sightedness of love. He was not long, how- 
ever, in arranging that matter. In his rambles over the country, 
he had become acquainted with a woman, who lived on the bor- 
der of Pennsylvania, and in a very romantic spot. This woman 
had, on one occasion, shown him kindness, when sick from fa- 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. 387 

tigue in sporting; and to that retired and beautiful spot, he could 
repair '.vithout the possibility of being discovered. This woman 
was called Wild Sal, on account of her living alone, and not be- 
ing often seen; for the place on the Brandy wine where she resided 
was then wild, and seldom trod, save by the foot of the fearless 
hunter, or the still more undaunted Indian. 

To this spot, as soon as he had made an agreement with Jane, 
Charles turned his horses' heads. The glorious sun was just 
heralding his approach — Aurora, the fair goddess of the morn, had 
just unbarred the golden gates of day, and was scattering her rosy 
light over the battle-field of the Brandywine. How beautiful, 
how lovely, does every thing in the country appear at such a time, 
on a summer's morn ? and now that the deed was done, and the 
die was cast, they both enjoyed it; for Jane had pass'd the climax 
of her fears, and made up her mind to be happy. She was mar- 
ried, and why need she fear the scoffs and the scorn of the world ? 
People might talk about her for a time, and people will talk about 
the best ; but, as soon as matters were understood — as soon as it 
was known that she was honorably married, and to such a man as 
Charles De Beaumont, one of the tip-top aristocracy; many of 
those who had talked about her, as the poor ruined plebeian girl, 
would, as Mrs. Aristocratic Jane De Beaumont, be ready to bow 
down at her feet. 

Such were her thoughts, as she looked from the carriage win- 
dow, on the lovely living landscape before her. From the cottage 
chimney of Wild Sal, the smoke was curling gayly up into the 
heavens; the bleating lambs were abroad on the hills; the birds, 
of beautiful plumage, were singing gaily in the green groves and 
glades around; all was harmony — all was peace. Is it strange, 
then, that a gentle heart, like that of Jane, should enjoy it? 

"Good morning, Mother Sarah, — I hope you're well," said 
Charles, as he assisted Jane to alight from her carriage. 

"The top o' themornin till ye," returned Sal, "an I hope ye'll 
tarry the day with me, for ivery inch iv ye's a gintleman. Och I 
noo, an ye've got a fine leddy with ye." 

"She's my wife. Mother, and I desire you to take care of her a 
while, as she has been sick, and needs the country air." 

"Och! an is it sick ye'll be saying — an I niver see a heartier 
sick one afore, I did'nt. Come in till the house, dear, an make 
yerself at home the day. Sit doon by the windy, dear, an take 
the air, and divil the bit ye need mind the dirt on the flure. 
Wisha, an 'tis I that can keep as claiie a house as any body, 



388 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

though I say it myself sure. Sit ye doon, Masther Charles — sit 
ye doon and take atf yer bonnet leddy, and sure but ye'll stay the 
day wid ould Sally, for its not all the goold in the universe could 
be more temptin than yer company." 

"Well, Mother, I want you to keep my lovely Jane awhile, and 
let no one know she is here, if you can help it. We are a run- 
away married couple." 

"Och! murther, murther, I'm kilt intirely. But ye're a bad by, 
ye're a bad by, and ye'll niver be the betther iv it in all ye're born 
days," and Sal laughed heartily at her own wit. "But I tell ye, 
mon, ye've got a tight little leddy as ever trod shoes. Och I but 
she'll plase ye wid her killen looks, — an it was meself that was 
good looken till I got the pain in the small o' me back." 

"Well, mother, if you'll take care of my darling Jane, you 
shall not want for money." 

"An it's take care iv her ye say! an if I don't, may the powers 
above niver take care o' me." 

This personage, who, as was observed before, was called Wild 
Sal, had some excellent traits of the heart; but there was one 
that was paramount to all — the love of money. Strange as it may 
seem, she had an inordinate love of money; and like many, she 
loved it for its own sake. She lived alone; she mingled with the 
world but little; she indulged in but little traffic, yet she had an 
inordinate love for money. But human nature is ever on the ex- 
treme, and extremes are said to meet — hence Sarah had many 
opposite qualities. She had been crossed in love, in early life ; 
she had loved, and been beloved, by an officer in Ireland, who 
wished to marry her, but she had been opposed by her friends, and 
it had colored her after life ; it had rendered her reckless of every 
thing, and, though she still boasted that the blood of a Wolf Tone 
ran in her veins, she cared not for any thing in this world. How 
little do parents think of the consequences, when they oppose, 
foolishly, the marriage of their children? Alas! how many in- 
stances have there been, in which early affections have been blasted, 
where perfect shipwreck has been the consequence.? I have 
known a young man, with brilliant promise, who had garnered up 
his affections, from childhood, in the bosom of a young creature, 
whom he intended to marry, and whose life became a perfect 
blank; a monotony — whose ambition was blasted, and who lost 
all love for every thing in the world, by having had his young af- 
fections blasted in the morning of his existence. As marriage is 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 389 

one of the most important concerns in this life, so the disappoint- 
ment of it becomes the most severe. The hollow-hearted world 
looks on, and laughs at the young man, or young lady, whose 
hopes have been blighted, while his or her heart is writhing in 
hopeless woe, and is clad in the darkest gloom of despair. 

But enough of Sarah's misfortunes. Charles and Jane were 
happy in each other's love. He idolized her, for her natural sim- 
plicity; for her freedom from the artificial, heartless conventional 
notions that govern aristocratic life; and Jane loved him because 
he loved her. The bonds between them, were like those between 
Othello and Desdemona — they were mutual. Ah I there lies the 
luxury of love ! Not where two hearts meet on equal grounds, 
but where they are divided by great and almost impassable barriers. 
But like stolen fruit, the sweetest of all love is that which is for- 
bidden. With what a longing eye does the fox survey grapes, 
which he knows it will be danger to approach? and with what 
contempt does he eat those which are scattered on the road? So 
it is in love. That which can be obtained easily, is rejected; while 
that which is hard to come at, is sought with avidity. He who 
sees the net carefully set to entrap him, will avoid it; while he 
will walk blindfolded into danger, to obtain the fair one, whose 
friends are resolved he shall not have her. The vagaries of the 
human heart, in love, are curious. 

The object it cannot obtain, it seeks, in spite of pistols and 
powder; while that which solicits, and is solicited by friends to be 
wooed, is passed by in cold neglect. 

So it was with Charles. He loved natural beauty; he loved the 
simplicity of nature; but the opposition of his mother, to thwart 
his wishes, gave a zest to his passion, and made him more deter- 
mined to have her at all hazards. 

Blissful indeed was the honey-moon to Charles, and ten times 
more blissful, if possible, to that young, inexperienced creature, 
at his side. She was one of those, whom nature had made for 
love; so gentle, so confiding, so innocent! She seemed made 
alone for love; her imagination was a world of love, and in it 
Charles was the object of her idolatry. And she did adore him 
with all the devotion ; with all the single-minded purpose of a 
pure and unpolluted heart. She was one of those whom Moore 
has described — 

"Who would blush when you praise her» and weep wlien you blame." 



390 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Jane found a very pleasant home in this wild and romantic spot, 
blessed, as she was, with the attentions of the man whom she 
loved with all her heart. Wild Sal was sometimes uncouth, but 
always kind in her rough way, and as Charles did not leave her 
for several days, Jane was perfectly happy and contented, though 
the thought of home occasionally brought with it a pang. 

When Charles did leave her, he promised to see her in a day or 
two, at furthest, and the very separation made their meeting more 
sweet. He supplied Sarah with every thing needed for the com- 
fort of Jane, and the money-loving hostess thought he was the 
finest ginileman she iver did see at all, at all. 

Time passed on; the luxury of love continued. Charles visited 
Jane frequently, and spent two or three days with her, in her 
wild retreat, and delicious were the golden moments as they fled 
on angel wings. Still old Johnny, the Boatman, had no knowledge 
of the fate of his now happy daughter. The good old dame Word- 
ley had begun to think that she was gone off to parts unknown, 
and every night offered up a prayer for the poor erring daughter. 

But the mind of the impulsive Charles was beginning to be sated 
with the luxuries of love. The delirious voluptuousness of that 
romantic passion, which had held his soul in subjection, was now 
passing away, like the fantastic visions of a dream, and he was 
awaking to the reality — he was awaking to find himself undone. 

As autumn, with her melancholy scenes, approached, his visits 
became less frequent, though the gentle Jane was all the time re- 
minding him that it was time to make a revelation of matters, and 
restore her once more to the world. Charles put her off, from 
time to time, with frivolous excuses; while he began heartily to 
repent that he had acted so rashly. And though the charms of 
Jane, in the hey-day of his passion, had appeared angelic, the 
truth was, he began now to see her faults, and that which he had 
once so ardently admired, now appeared uncouth in his eyes. 

Many a tear did poor Jane shed secretly, when Charles was ab- 
sent; and yet she was afraid to confess to her own heart the cause 
of those tears. When he came, her joy was so great that she 
hastily wiped them away, and met him in smiles. She dared not 
mention to him her fears, though the cause of them was apparent; 
least, in doing so, she should dispel the illusion that she fondly 
cherished. 

"My dear Charles," she said to him one day, when he had been 
longer absent than usual, "you look changed — you are no longer 
the happy being you have been — are you sick?" 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 391 

"No, no; I am not sick," returned Charles, with a sigh, and at 
the same time exhibiting ill feeling. " It does not become you 
to ask such questions." 

These were the first unkind words he had given her, and Jane, 
with wounded feelings, turned away to hide her grief, while he 
walked the floor in a musing mood. 

"Oh! Charles," she exclaimed, as she burst into tears, "I did 
not intend to offend you. I beg, I implore you not to be angry, 
for if you, for whom I have forsaken all else, now turn against me, 
what will become of me!" 

"Come, come," said Charles, in a gruff voice, "no more of this. 
I hate such exhibitions of weakness." 

"Dearest Charles, I did not intend to offend you," returned the 
unhappy girl, as she attempted to smile through her tears. 

"Then let us have no more of it," he replied, and turning 
hastily on his heel, went out, mounted his horse, and rode off. 

Charles, from the happiest, had, in a few months, become the 
most miserable of men ; and he wondered how it was, that what 
he had once considered graces in Jane, now appeared, in his eyes, 
as defects. He had once been enraptured at hearing her sing, but 
now her tone and manner seemed awkward and ridiculous. He 
noticed her walk — it was awkward; and even her smile disgusted 
him. He became less and less attentive to her, and his purse was 
not so often opened to the rapacious fingers of Sarah. She, too, 
on that account, became less attentive and subservient to the un- 
happy Jane. 

"Well, young woman," she exclaimed one day, "an, be the 
powers, but I think its high time that sich likes as yerself would 
be afther findin another home, for I don't mane till wait on ye any 
longer, at all at all. Ye'd betther be afther bundlin up, an lookin 
afther the young gintleman, for I don't think he cares for sich 
likes as you." 

Jane, poor girl, could only answer with her tears, as she sat 
watching at the window for the return of Charles, and revolving in 
her mind whether she had not better go home at once, and, in 
penitence and tears, throw herself at the feet of her poor old 
father and mother. Every time Charles came, he was more and 
more reserved in his manner, and, at times, cold and cruel to her 
who had forsaken all else that she loved, for him. Ah ! how could 
the love he had once felt, and which had led him to worship her, 
change so soon? 




392 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



CHAPTER X. 



" Oh ! love grows cold— tliou art not what I thought, 
I dreamt thou wert an angel, and I find 
Thou art but woman— Oh ! 'tis strange indeed ! 
That I could thus have loved, and been deceived!" — Anon. 



lANE sat eve after eve at her window, in that lone spot, 
watching for Charles; but he came not. She wept to 
think that he could so soon forget his vow; that he could 
so soon forget all that he had so solemnly pledged; but 
she wept in vain. She then made up her mind to go home to her 
poor old parents; to fall upon her knees, and beg forgiveness fo 
what she had done, for the love of faithless man. 

"Oh! Charles," she exclaimed, as she wiped away the tears 
from her eyes, <' you little know what anguish you have given to a 
heart that loves you sincerely — loves you dearly!" 

She then put on her bonnet, and, passing by her former friend 
and keeper, she pretended she was disposed for a walk, and took 
her way towards home. Ah! who can tell the feelings of that 
sad, forlorn girl, as she trod her way to that home which she had 
deserted? Who can imagine the wretchedness of soul in that pure 
unpolluted woman? How miserable were her feelings when her 
thoughts came in that her parents would think that she had betrayed 
the admonitions they had given her! Ever and anon she stopped, 
and thought of Charles. Again her tears poured down her cheeks. 

" Can it be possible," she exclaimed mentally, " that such is 
man's love ? Never again will I put faith in protestations of man !" 

Thus she mused until she came in sight of her father's cottage. 
The old man was standing in the yard — she rushed forward and 
fell at his feet, exclaiming, "Oh! father, forgive your poor repent- 
ant daughter, who trusted in the love of man, and has been de- 
ceived. Where, oh! where is my mother?" 

"Away, vile creature!" replied the old man. "You are never 
again to enter my door. Your mother is gone and what care you 
for a mother, who will thus disgrace her." 

" Oh ! my dear father, I am no vile creature," exclaimed the 
girl in piteous tones, still clinging to his knees. 

"Away, I say — out of my sight— you have disgraced your poor 
old parents, and are no longer worthy to be called their daughter. 
Never let me see you again." 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. 393 

As he spoke he thrust her from him, as if she had been a rattle- 
snake. Poor Jane gave one piercing scream, and fell swooning 
to the ground. When she recovered her consciousness her father 
was gone, she knew not whither. She arose and, adjusting the 
blue mantle which Charles thought her so graceful in, she turned 
her face back to the place from whence she came. She resolved 
to throw herself on the mercy of Sal, until she could hear some 
tidings of Charles, but it required all the eloquence that she was 
mistress of, to prevail upon her to give her a home until she wrote 
to Charles her last appeal. But she did prevail, and seating her- 
self on an old stool, she indited to him the following epistle: 

"Dear Charles, this is the last you will ever hear from your poor, forsaken 
Jane. Oh! how could you thus prove recreant to the holy vows you made? 
How can you desert her, to whom you breathed eternal fidehty ? To my father's 
cottage I can never return. If you forsake me, there is no alternative but the 
grave. Can you, oh ! Charles, will you desert her, whose whole heart is yours? 
Come to me, I implore you, and only say that you still love me. Even that 
will console a heart ready to break. Come, Charles, oh! come, and see your 
poor Jane once more." 

Such was the purport of the letter written by that simple girl. 
It is astonishing how the mind becomes quickened by the passion 
of love. Jane had never attempted letter-writing before, but now 
that her heart was breaking, an impulse was given to her intellect. 
Language seemed to come to her intuitively, and without an effort. 



CHAPTER XI. 

"Oh ! that I had not loved— for tliug to be 
The husband of a woman now I loathe, 
Is worse than death— but stay, a moment hold ! 
There's one way left."— Old Plat. 

HARLES was now the most wretched being in existence. 
What to do he did not know. He dreaded the disclosure 
of the marriage, and he had become weary of her he had 
so much loved. Could he take her home.? No. 
He was riding one morning with his servant, and the thought 
struck him that he might bribe him to carry her off to parts unknown. 
" Would you," said he to his servant, " like that pretty girl for a 
partner." 
50 




394 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"I don't understand you, sir," replied the servant. 

" I am weary of her, and fearful that my marriage will be dis- 
covered by my mother. If you will dispose of her, you shall be 
well rewarded." 

" I understand you, sir, and I can do that in short order if you 
pay me well for it. How would you like to have her disposed of? 
I mean, what mode of stopping her breath?" 

" Villain," cried Charles, as he grasped him by the collar, " dare 
to hint at such a thing as harming one hair of her head, and this 
instant your life shall pay the forfeit." 

" I beg pardon, sir, I did not understand you." 

"I meant," said Charles, soothingly, "that you should take her 
away, south or west, I care not which, so that she will never be 
seen here; and for doing so I have a considerable sum of money, 
which shall be yours." 

" Oh! if that's all, sir," replied the hard-hearted wretch, " lean 
accommodate you. I'll carry her where you will never see her 
again, I'll warrant you, sir, and all that I ask of you is that liber- 
ality you promised." 

" You shall have it," said Charles, delighted with the opportunity 
to hide what he had done, and to gratify his mother by wedding 
Caroline. "You shall have it. And now for the manner of 
accomplishing the act. You must go to her, and tell her that I 
sent for her. Call upon her in the night and bid her be hasty; 
that I am impatient to see her. She does not know the road, and 
vou can arrive with her at Philadelphia ere she will be aware of the 
trick. Then tell her that she is to be carried, by steamboat, down 
the Delaware, to where we reside." 

A bargain was struck, and that night was fixed on for the per- 
petration of the act. The servant received the money, and, in the 
afternoon, took his way to the residence of Sal. About midnight 
he arrived; knocked at the door; and in an instant Jane was up, 
for she suspected Charles had come. Her disappointment was 
oreat, but at the announcement that she was to be carried to the 
residence of Charles, her fears subsided, and she hastily put on 
her bonnet and the blue mantle, and made preparation to depart. 

Sal was truly glad to see her go, as there was no more money 
forthcoming, and that was the idol of her heart. Indeed she was 
quite impudent in her remarks, which Jane, however, did not stop 
to hear. Werner, her attendant, assured her so solemnly that she 
was to be received with open arms, that her mind became exhilarated, 
and she enquired, particularly, of what manner of woman Madame 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 395 

De Beaumont was. Werner, with the wily tongue of a villain, 
gave her a glowing description of the kindness in store for her, 
and how anxious the whole family were to press her to their arms, 
and acknowledge her as a daughter. Poor Jane believed every 
word, and wiped away every tear. A new prospect opened before 
her, and she believed as implicitly in the truth, of what she heard 
from Werner, as she had done in the protestations of Charles. 
How credulous is the pure and open heart, when it once gives 
way to the blandishments of love. It is ready to receive aught 
that has a tendency to cherish its predilections. 

Thus did Werner lead on the unsuspecting girl. With almost 
superhuman fortitude, she bore the weary walk; no fatigue was 
too great for her delicate limbs, if she might once more feel the 
throbbing of his heart, who had wooed her to love. She even 
felt that she could expire in his arms, if upon her dying ear could 
fall such sentiments as he had once breathed to her. 

In a small vessel at Philadelphia, the captain of which Werner 
knew, he took passage, for Jane and himself, to the West Indies, 
bidding the captain to inform her, that he was bound for the 
Brandy wine. Oh! how her heart glowed as the sails of the craft 
bent in beauty to the breeze; and her eye was kept strained for a 
glimpse of that land, where all that she loved now dwelt. But she 
was unacquainted with the navigation of the river, and she could 
not know when she came to the Brandy wine. Nevertheless she 
was happy in what Werner had told her, and so confident was 
she that he would not deceive her, that she rested perfectly satis- 
fied. A pure heart that is conscious in itself that it would not 
deceive, is slow to suspect deception in another. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Alas ! 'tis she — tliat poor unfortunate — 
And he's the man wlio did tlic horrid deed, 
Abhorrent to our nature." 



iHARLES had been so particular as to watch the steps of 
Werner to Philadelphia, and had satisfied himself that he 
was gone with Jane. He now breathed more freely, but 
he was far from being happy, for the conscience with a 
scorpion tongue lashed his guilty soul. He felt that he had betrayed 
a genth;, generous heart that sincerely loved him, and the con- 




396 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

sciousness that he had promised his mother to wed his cousin 
Caroline, wrung his soul with agony. He was about to impose 
himself upon one who knew not that he was the husband of 
another, and he writhed under the anguish of conscious guilt. 

Madame De Beaumont was in an ecstacy of pleasure, that 
what she had so long and so devoutly wished, was about to be 
consummated ; nor was Caroline less happy. Charles had solemnly 
pledged himself, and the day was rapidly rolling on. Preparations 
were being made on a grand scale, that the nuptials might be 
celebrated with great pomp and circumstance. Madame De 
Beaumont was active in the matter, and was determined that no 
expense should be spared, and no effort that would have a ten- 
dency to give eclat to the occasion. 

The nearer the day came, the more wretched was Charles. He 
was in constant dread, lest by some accident Jane should return, 
and expose his perfidy. How could he meet her, whose young, 
pure heart he had wooed and won, and then betrayed? The 
thought was madness. 

It was on the day before that on which his marriage was to be 
solemnized, that Charles wandered down the Brandywine to its 
mouth, where he saw a boat, and three or four men anxiously sur- 
veying something in the water. As he approached nearer he heard 
one of the men say — "This is the body of the boatman's daugh- 
ter, I believe; though it has been in the river so long that I 
can't recognize the face. Here's the blue mantle that she always 
wore." 

Had a thunderbolt struck Charles, he could not have been more 
startled. 

" Gracious heaven," he mentally exclaimed, " then the villain 
has murdered the poor, dear Jane! I am a blasted man. I shall 
be charged with hiring the villain to do the deed." 

"Why, Mr. De Beaumont, what makes you look so ghastly?" 
enquired one of the men, who saw him shaking as with an ague. 
" God forbid, sir, that you had any hand in it!" 

" I — I — I never told bim to do such a damnable deed," stam- 
mered Charles, not knowing what he said. 

" There's something strange about that man's actions." said 
another of the men. " If he has not had some hand in the 
matter, he must be beside himself. Look at him — I'll wager a 
shilling that he knows something about it." 

"Well, I think &o too," said a third, looking steadfastly at 
Charles. 



"WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 397 

In the meantime several men came to the spot, amontr whom 
was Johnny, the boatman. The moment he saw the mutilated 
body in the water, he cried out — "That is my daughter. Yes, 
yes; it is her dress." 

Notwithstanding his former cruelty, he gazed upon the body 
for a moment, and falling upon his knees, with his hands and 
eyes uplifted to heaven, burst into tears. 

Charles, in the meantime, had fled he knew not whither. The 
body of the unfortunate girl, was conveyed to the cottage of the 
boatman, and after the usual jury was held, was buried. Though 
so much mutilated every one agreed from the dress and other 
particulars that it was no other than the unfortunate Jane. 

The story of the absence of Jane from home had not excited 
much curiosity, but now that it was discovered that she was 
drowned, every one was running to know about it. The absence 
of Charles De Beaumont now, too, roused public curiosity, and 
rumor on rumor went abroad. Werner, the servant of Charles, 
had told some of his secrets to his particular friends, and thus a 
cry was raised which led on the search of Wild Sal, who at once 
told the whole story of how Charles carried off Jane; was married; 
and how he deserted her. 

By degrees the whole history of the matter was brought to light, 
and great was the consternation of Madame De Beaumont and 
Caroline, who were constrained to believe, that if Charles did not 
murder the poor girl, he was equally guilty in the eye of the law, 
in having paid his servant to do so. Weeping and wailing alone 
were heard in those aristocratic halls for some time. Wretched 
was that mother, for having thwarted the wishes of her son, and 
in having compelled him to pledge himself to Caroline. 

Every means were used to discover the retreat of Charles, for 
some time, but without elfeet. No one could give any tidings of him. 
Time passed on, and the excitement in a measure passed away, 
though the circumstance was not forgotten. A rumor was circu- 
lated that he was in New York, and a requisition was sent on 
for him, and, what was singular, he was arrested at the very 
moment that he had met Werner, and in his phrenzy was abusing 
him. Both were thrown into prison, to await the demand for 
them which was not long in coming. They were both brought 
back, and thrown into a dungeon to await their trial. 




398 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

" A change came o'er the spirit of tlie scene, 
And all was new." 

)H0 can imagine the wretchedness of that young man, 
as he lay incarcerated in a dreary dungeon? What 
could he expect? Circumstances were strongly 
against him, as, in unguarded moments, language 
had escaped him, which was sufficient to satisfy any unprejudiced 
mind that he was guilty of having caused her death, if he did not 
perform the act with his own hand. Worse than all, Werner, 
finding that Charles had breathed language calculated to convict 
him, resolved to turn State's evidence, as he had become incensed, 
and sacrifice the life of Charles to save his own. 

Charles was stretched on the floor of his dungeon, when he 
heard the rattling of bars; the massive iron door swung open, and 
with screams, his mother and Caroline rushed in. 

"Oh! Charles, my son, my unfortunate son, your miserable 
mother has murdered you! Oh! how madly I have acted! Would 
to heaven, my child, that I had never crossed your path in love, 
then might I have escaped the agonies I feel." 

"Ah! my mother, it is my destiny. I loved Jane to madness, 
and strange ii was that love should so soon grow cold. I loved 
her with all the devotion that is known to the human heart, but in 
one dark hour it was gone. But I did not murder her." 

''No, Charles," cried Caroline, "you could not be guilty of such 
an act. Ah! would that you had loved Jane still; and were she 
here now, I would place her in your arms, but to restore you to 
what you were." 

" Fain would I take her to my arms as my daughter," exclaimed 
Madame De Beaumont, " and love her for your sake, could I only 
recall the dreadful fate that I fear hangs over you." 

Charles in the anguish of his soul arose with his clanking chain, 
and throwing himself into the arms of his mother, burst into a 
passionate fit of weeping. He looked haggard and miserable, for 
bis heart was now preying upon itself in vain regrets. From that 
gloomy home, in which unfortunate love had entombed Charles, his 
mother and cousin departed ; but not without a promise to be with 
him to the last extremity of his peril. When they were gone, the 
learned legal gentleman whom he had employed entered, and 
confenod with him in regard to the evidence of him who had re- 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 399 

solved to sacrifice his life. Werner had declared that Charles 
bribed him to make way with the unhappy Jane, and his evidence, 
if not upset by other testimony, must devote him to ignominious 
death. 

This information threw the wretched man into still greater 
wretchedness. He knew of no witness who could rebut the testi- 
mony of Werner, and the powers of his mind were so prostrated 
that he could not summon energy to reflect on the matter. Like 
other men who had trod the stage of life, he had placed himself 
in difficulty without being conscious of crime, save that which had 
been the result of love, and even that he could now hardly con- 
sider a crime, as he had acted entirely without malice in the case. 
His soul had been swayed by that passion, and he felt that he had 
acted from the influence of impulses that he could no more con- 
trol than he could the throbbing of the heart that had been the 
seat of the passion that gave rise to those impulses. He felt that 
love had made a fool of him, as it does of all men ; and he thought 
that it was hard he should suffer for that which he could not con- 
trol, and for that which he did not commit. 

Every day his mother visited him, and poured out her vain re- 
g'rets that she had endeavored to sway him in that passion which 
she felt in her own case was uncontrollable. Every day did she 
weep upon his bosom, and deplore the sad situation in which he 
was placed. Ah ! what would not that mother have given could 
she now have recalled what she had done ! But it was too late — 
Oh! yes, it was too late — her child, her idolized child, would be 
sacrificed — the pride of her family blasted — her own happiness 
destroyed — all, all in consequence of her own folly ! If possible, 
her soul writhed with greater agony than that which rent the bo- 
som of Charles, and it would have touched any heart to have 
marked that mother as she wended her way into the prison at New 
Castle, and to have seen her in the gloom of the dungeon on her 
knees before her Charles^her hands uplifted, and her eyes stream- 
ing with tears, while she implored God to save him. She could 
not now upbraid him — Oh ! no, she had come to her reason — she 
had forgotten that accursed love of money — she felt that he had 
wished to love as she had loved iierself — she felt that he had wished 
to love with that idolatry that knows but the one worshiped image, 
regardless of all the extraneous idols to which the human heart 
often bows down. 

But the day on which Charles was to be tried for his life rolled 
on. It was a beautiful morn to those in whose souls there was no 



400 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

shadow of grief; but ah ! to Charles it was anything but lovely, 
though he had so long pondered on the gloomy prospect, that he 
had become in a measure careless. It is strange how the soul 
will become reconciled, by deliberation, to what at first it started 
from with the utmost horror! The prospect of death to Charles 
was in the beginning terrific, but he had contemplated it so long, 
that he had gradually made up his mind that the grim king was 
not so appalling as he had been represented. It has been said 
that persons will sleep soundly on the night before their execu- 
tion, as was the case with the son of General Castine, in France, 
and so did Charles, after his great grief for the loss of Jane. In 
his dreams that night he saw her, as he had seen her when he first 
loved her; and, strange as it may seem, he loved her when he 
awoke with the same devotion that he had felt before. How will- 
ingly would he have welcomed her to his arms, could he have re- 
called her from the sombre silence and solitude of the grave ! 
Again was the smile of that sweet girl lovely to his gaze, and he 
wondered how he could have repudiated so much of woman's 
witchery and loveliness. 

But to proceed. While Charles was thinking of her he had so 
fondly loved and so basely betrayed, the summons came for him to 
appear before that awful bar which was to dispense to him life or 
death. He had become careless of the result, as his love for Jane 
had now returned, and if his life were spared, he could not be 
happy without her. 

I shall describe to the reader, in iew words, the scene that fol- 
lowed, and the fate of the miserable young man. Dressed in deep 
mourning, Madame De Beaumont took her seat in the box with 
her son, and listened attentively to the proceedings of the court. 
She had vainly supposed that she had managed to kill the testi- 
mony of Werner, but when he appeared, and swore positively that 
Charles had given him a sum of money to murder Jane, and she 
saw the effect of his evidence on the jury, her heart failed — she 
saw that he was doomed. 

Werner declared that Charles hired him to murder Jane, but 
that he at first relented on account of her sweet, gentle disposi- 
tion — that he resolved in his own mind to take her to the West 
Indies — that while going down the river, he took her in a boat, 
under pretence that she was to be landed and carried to the resi- 
dence of her husband. 

"But why, sir, did you take her in the boat?" demanded the 
lawyer of Charles. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFOKD BARD. 401 

" Because, sir, she spied the cottage of her father, and declared 
that if she were carried any further, she would throw herself 
into the river. I then took the boat, told the captain that I would 
return ere his anchor was raised, and departed." 

"And you threw her overboard ?" 

"I did." 

" What followed?" 

"I returned to the vessel— was cast away, outside the Capes — 
clung to a plank — reached the shore after much suffering, and 
came to testify against him who induced me to do the deed." 

The jury, after hearing all the evidence, retired for a few minutes, 
and returned into court. 

"Well, sir, Mr. Foreman, what say you, is this man guilty or 
not guilty?" 

" Guilty of Murder in the First Degree !" 

A wild and piercing shriek broke from the lips of Madame De 
Beaumont, and she fell prostrate at the feet of Charles, who sat 
with his eyes fixed on vacancy, as if unconscious of all that was 
passing around him. The sympathising spectators bore the un- 
happy mother from the scene of her sorrow, while Charles was 
conducted by an officer back to that dungeon from whence he 
should never again proceed but as a corpse. 

Let us now drop a veil over the miseries of that mother, whose 
love of lucre was the cause of this scene of wretchedness. It 
would be vain to attempt to picture the scenes which afterwards 
passed between Charles and his mother, when she came to tell 
him the time that was fixed for him to die, and of the efforts she 
incessantly made to save him from the doom. 

It touched the soul of the Governor to sensibility when she ap- 
peared before him, in her weeds, to plead for the life of her only 
child. Tears gushed from his eyes, as she knelt humbly before 
him. 

"Save, oh! save, sir," cried the weeping mother, "the first-born 
of my heart." 

" Madam," said the Governor, as he wiped the tears from his 
eyes, "it would give me joy to gratify a parent, but justice, stern 
justice bids me refuse." 

After many mournful appeals to his sympathy, she turned and 
left him with the conviction that her son was doomed, by the irre- 
vocable decrees of fate, to die. Sad, sad were her thoughts, as 
she day after day entered the gloomy prison to look again on her 
unhapijy son. There he lay, night after night, thinking of that 
n] 



402 WHITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

sweet girl whose life he had unintentionally destroyed, and for 
which he was to die. 

It was a gloomy night in December, that Charles stood at the 
window of the prison, and anxiously gazed for the coming of his 
mother. A presentiment had seized him that she would bring 
him happy tidings, for the next was the day on which he was to 
die. But she came not, and he stretched himself on the floor in 
perfect resignation to his fate. With the consciousness that the 
next sun would cast its last lingering rays on his grave, he gave 
himself to sleep, and in that sleep, what an elysium appeared 
before him ! The sweet, the darling Jane, was again locked in 
his arms, and he was happy in the smiles of his mother, who re- 
cognized Jane as her daughter with rapture. Oh ! how hard was 
it that the cold reality should break in upon him ! 

Charles was roused from his dream by the thunder of the iron 
bar at the door, and the entrance of the very representatives of the 
phantoms of his dream. 

"Dear Charles," screamed his rpother, in an ecstasy, "here is 
Jane, your wife — oh ! take her to your arms, and we will be happy 
again !" 

At the name of Jane, Charles leaped to his feet, and clasped 
her. It was indeed Jane — ^^but how did she appear again in life ? 
Was she not drowned? No. The blue mantle, which Charles 
had so much loved, saved her from a watery grave, and soon did 
the joyful tidings fly, and soon was Charles liberated to be a happier 
man than he had ever been ; for when he found that Jane had de- 
termined to save his life, though she too must have thought him 
guilty, he adored her for her devotion. 

When Werner threw her in the water, he hastily put back his 
boat to the vessel, and never turned his guilty eye to look upon 
his drowning victim. Buoyed by her clothes, the lovely Jane 
clung to a piece of floating wreck, and was thrown on the shore 
of New Jersey. Exhausted, pale, and apparently lifeless, the dear 
little Jane was discovered by a fisherman's son, who was struck 
with her charms. She had nobly struggled to save herself, and the 
young man saw her just as she had crawled upon the shore. With 
that feeling which lives in the breast of boy or man, he gazed 
upon her, nor long did he gaze ere he raised her to her feet, and 
generously supporting her, bore her to the humble home of his 
mother, a widow. Here a fever seized her, consequent on the 
anxiety and fatigue she had undergone, and for a long time she 
was delirious. The young man hung around her during her long 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 403 * 

illness, and in the act of ministering to a suffering fellow-being, 
loved her. Apropos ! how often have the souls of man and wo- 
man been blended in a sick room ! How often have those deli- 
cate attentions which are rendered to one in sickness, been re- 
warded by the adoration of the heart ! 

But when reason dawned on Jane, she heard of what had tran- 
spired, and fled from the spot to save him whom she loved above 
all else. — Oh ! how great are our joys after great griefs, and thus 
it now was with those whose history I have given. 

Madame De Beaumont had cause to thank God that Charles had 
followed the dictates of his own heart. Never, perhaps, was there 
a lovelier or more exemplary pair than they, for their hearts ap- 
peared to have become chastened by the anguish they had under- 
gone. All were happy — all rejoiced. The love of Charles and 
Jane seemed to be cemented by the strongest of all ties — by 
affliction. All our joys are in proportion to our sorrows, and if 
one should say that he had enjoyed unmarred happiness, there 
would be no truth in the assertion. 

Years passed away, and the children of Charles and Jane con- 
versed of the happiness enjoyed by their parents. There is one 
descendant now, who blooms and blushes along the streets of Wil- 
mington, in whose lovely face still lingers the lineaments of Jane 
— on whose cheek is still seen her sweet smile. Reader, if you often 
walk on Third Street, you cannot mistake her, for she is the very 
personification of love and beauty. You will know her by the 
blue mantle she wears in remembrance of her mother. 



Dear Woman, uert thou from us liuri'd, 

No more our hearts to bless; 
Life were a curse, and all the world 

A waste, a wilderness; 
By thee we gain all earthly bliss, 

Thy hand doth wipe the tear, 
And from thy lips one heart-warm kiss 

Will be to memory dear. 



404 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



W\)\] i)an't ^f CoiHB? 



Why don't he come? — no footstep falls 
Upon the lone, deserted street; 

His much loved form within these walls, 
I do not now so often greet. 

There was a time when even a word, 
(Ah! would to heaven it were so now;) 

Would bid him fly like some swift bird 
To breathe, even at my feet, his vow. 

There was a time when I could claim 

A father and a mother's care; 
I thought not then that I with shame 

Should ever thus my woes declare. 

Neglected wife! — Oh, oft those words, 
A keen and killing pang impart; 

More thrilling than a thousand swords, — 
Than poison 'd daggers to the heart. 

There, in its cradle, sleeps my child. 
Unconscious of its mother's wrongs; 

It knows not know my brain runs wild, 
When breathing love's neglected songs. 

Even on its face I see him smile. 
My husband's smile, that still endear.s; 

Oh! let me gaze on it awhile, 

It minds me of those happy years 

When sorrow knew no resting place 
Within this heart, then used to joy; 

Oh! would that I could now retrace 
Those happy days, my slumbering boy! 

Why don't he come? — 'Tis midnight now. 
And still I weep o'er his delay; 

There was a time he kept his vow. 
And thought an age one hour away. 

Has he forgot his Ellen? — Nay, 

Has some fair form his fondness won? 

That thought is madness; hence, away! 
If I but dream it I'm undone. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 405 

Ah! sooner in my breast I'd feel, 

The glittering dagger's keenest smart; 
Than to my soul that truth reveal, 

Than know another claim 'd his heart. 

For oh! to woman's love belongs 

Eternity — time cannot kill; 
I love him even with all my wrongs. 

With all his faults I love him still. 



Co \^t C^nrmfr. 



Oh! let me lean upon that bosom, where 
I've felt the raptures angels only feel; 

And while I feel thy fond heart beating there, 
Once more the feelings of my own reveal! 

Then on that red, luxurious lip of love. 

Where I have sigh'd, oh! let me sigh once more! 

And while I dream, as angels dream above. 
Oh! let me linger still, and still adore! 

And while on thy voluptuous Up I sigh, 
And my soul melts in pure ecstatic bliss; 

Oh! let me gaze upon thy bright blue eye, 

For if on earth there's heav'n, it must be this. 

When I have sat, and silently have gazed 
Into that dark blue dazzUng eye, there broke 

A language, in the hght that from it blazed. 
More eloquent than Grecian sages spoke. 

Oh! yes, it told how deeply thou did'st love, 
How thy heart beat in unison with mine; 

Then when I rush'd into thine arms, my dove, 
I felt a bhss as pure as 'twas divine. 

For in that little heart, that oft I've felt 

Beating against my bosom, there's no guile; 

"Tis pure as aught to which man ever knelt, — 
The light of virtue lives e'en in thy smile. 

Oh! I have heard thy gentle bosom sigh. 
When blasted by the bowl, I did thee seek; 



406 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

I've seen the big tear, from thy beauteous eye, 
Roll sorrowfully down thy charming cheek. 

And when I chided thee, the lovely laugh, 

From thy red li^DS, broke sweetly on mine ear; 

Ne'er did the gods, on high Olympus, quaff 
With such delight, as I that laugh did hear. 

For never did the gods such nectar sip. 
And ne'er did harp of heav'n such music make; 

As 1 have found on thy ambrosial lip. 
And in its liquid lapses heard to brealc. 

Oh! shall we ever meet again on earth? 

Siiall I again enjoy that killing kiss? 
One moment of such luxury is worth 

A whole eternity of common bliss. 

Thou Charmer, love is not the offspring base 
Of wild desires, that o'er the bosom roll; 

No, well thou know'st 'tis of a heavenly race, — 
Angel of earth, and Syren of the soul. 



There once was a time, in a beautiful bower. 
When Cupid mourned over the fall of his art; 

From a change in the fashions Love lost all his power, 
For no lady would let him come into her heart. 

The ladies all cried, what a pitiful creature 
Dan Cupid must be, in his homespun attire; 

No splendor about him in form or in feature. 
Nay, nothing the hearts of the fair to inspire. 

Dan Cupid was then a plain lad, without fashion, 
He loved the fair sex when they neatly were clad; 

The gay and the dashy, with jewels and cash on. 
Would 'nt look on the boy, tho' his smile was so sad. 

Never mind, said young Cupid, one day in the bower, 
As he pointed his arrow and fixed his bow-strings; 

Like woman I'll change, to regain my lost power, 
And ride to her heart on a butterfly's wings. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 407 



€n n jFrUni). 



You ask me if I've loved — Oli ! yes, 

I've bow'd at woman's feet: 
And felt an ecstasy, a bliss. 

That was divinely sweet. 

Oh ! had I worship 'd God , as I 

To her devout have been; 
I should not breathe a wretch's sigh, 

Or be a child of sin. 

I've sighed on woman's lip of love, 

And gazed in her dark eye; 
Until I thought her from above, — 

An angel of the sky. 

E'en now, upon my lip, I feel 

Her blissful burning kiss; 
And fancy that again I steal 

That harbinger of bliss. 

Oil ! could I feel the luxury 

Of love, that I have felt. 
When I at beauty's shrine, my knee. 

In deep devotion, knelt; 

1 fain would yield my lingering breath 

Up sweetly in her arms; 
Enraptured while I gazed, in death. 

On her bewitching charms. 

But ne'er, oh! ne'er can I, again, 
Bow down at beauty's shrine; 

I ne'er can wear the silken chain. 
That once I thought divine. 

My heart is now the lonely tomb, 

In which love lies inurn'd; 
I cannot bear again the doom — 

To love and to be spurn 'd. 

JMy soul is charmed with woman's worth, 

On her dark eye I gaze; 
But ne'er can know again on earth, 

The dream of other days. 



HELEN MAG TREVER 



A TALE OF 



€\t ^iMt at %xiu\h)[nn. 



f * m 




HE red cloud of revolution had burst with all 
|its fury on this devoted land, and the thunders 
I of British vengeance were reverberating from 
'shore to shore, at the period ol" which T write. 
General Howe, with the determination of enter- 
ing Philadelphia, had privately put to sea, leaving 
New York in the command of Sir Henry Clinton. 
On the 20th of August, 1777, he entered the 
Chesapeake Bay, and soon after landed his army 
of eighteen thousand men at Elk Ferry, in 
Maryland. 

The people of the Colonies, tired of delay, 
urged General Washington to hazard a general 
engagement to save Philadelphia; though his 
army, which had just been recruited, consisted 
of only between nine and ten thousand men, 
many of whom were raw militia. Yielding, however, to their 
wishes, he immediately crossed the Delaware, and taking his way 
through Philadelphia marched directly to meet the enemy. On 
the eastern bank of Brandywine creek, within sight of Chadd's 
Ford, he took up his position, and calmly awaited the enemy's 
approach. 

It was in the pensive and plenteous month of September, when 
the husbandman was busy, and all nature had begun to put on 
the aspect of decay, when the sounds of the camp went echoing 
down the hill, which now lifts its only head over as lovely a land- 
scape as the surrounding country can present. Who can imagine 
the reflections of those who had left their homes, their wives and 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 409 

children, and were there wailing for the deadly conflict, which 
was destined to stretch twelve hundred of them stiff and stark on 
the gory field? It was an awful period, for that battb might prove 
the downfall of the temple of liberty, for the triumph of which so 
many noble hearts had already bled. It was indeed a dark period 
in our country's history. A handful of devoted and dauntless 
men were standing up before the legions of the most powerful 
nation on the globe, which not satisfied with her own power, 
bought Hessians at a dollar per head, and employed the Indians 
to aid their cause. Well may we hold in eternal, grateful remem- 
brance the memory of those illustrious patriots who planned, and 
the brave band of heroes who fought and fell to secure those in- 
estimable rights which we now enjoy. 

There stood on the western bank of the Brandywine what was 
at that time considered a splendid and luxurious farm-house, of 
ancient date, said to have been erected by one of the early Scotch 
settlers, no trace of which now remains. The romantic park and 
pleasure-grounds have long since disappeared before the axe, and 
the beautiful garden of Helen Mac Trever, laid out by female taste 
in winding walks, and graced with groves and shrubbery, where 
she often sat at the evening hour to contemplate, or wandered at 
midnight to muse on the full round moon, has grown up in weeds 
and can no longer be distinguished from the surrounding fields. 

In this old-fashioned though sumptuous mansion, with its pro- 
jecting eves and balcony, resided Colonel Mac Trever, the father 
of Helen, and formerly an officer in the French war. Left a fortune 
by his father, who fell during his childhood, in the famous battle of 
Culloden in 1746, he emigrated in early life to Philadelphia, where 
he married; this farm being part of the property which he received 
with his wife. Col. Mac Trever had but two children ; a daughter, 
Helen; and a son, Donald, who was an officer in the American 
army. Both father and son had early imbibed the love of liberty, 
and espoused with heart and hand the cause of a suffering people, 
struggling for their rights. 

Helen Mac Trever was a singular being, and seemed to have 
been destined for the period of darkness and danger in which she 
had been born, for her dauntless spirit nothing could intimidate. 
She was indeed a stranger to fear. She was rather above the 
middle stature, and graceful in her symmetry as the Venus de 
Medicis. Though her features were masculine, and her com 
plexion brown, there was peculiar beauty in the brilliancy of her 
dark and dazzling eye; in the roses that ever bloomed on her 
52 



410 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

cheek and lip; and in the angelic smile which dimpled her cheek, 
when pleasure filled her young and susceptible heart. She had 
attained her eighteenth year, and never was there a woman more 
fascinating in mind or manners than Helen Mac Trever, for she 
had, unlike the flimsy accomplishments of ladies of modern times, 
acquired in Philadelphia a solid education, and from her earliest 
years had applied herself diligently to the acquisition of useful 
as well as ornamental knowledge. She was particularly versed 
in history; and in studying the characters of the brave Scottish 
heroes and heroines, she seemed to have imbibed their spirit, and 
to have become in turn heroic. She had accustomed herself to 
athletic exercises, and she was peculiarly picturesque when mounted 
on her gay and fiery charger, in her highland costume, which she 
occasionally wore to please her father, when flying in sport over 
the green fields, and dashing down the steep hills. No lady, of 
the most polished class of the present day is more bewitching or 
winning in conversation, than was Helen Mac Trever; and she 
never visited Wilmington or Philadelphia, that she did not leave 
some heart to ache after her departure. She was at heart a true 
republican, and often would she enthusiastically exclaim — 
"Oh! that I were a man, that by the side of my brave brother 
I might meet the bloody Briton on the field of battle, and pour 
out, if the sacrifice were demanded, my heart's best blood in the 
sacred cause of freedom." 

Helen Mac Trever was formed by nature to be happy, and she 
was happy; though in musing moments, and sometimes in con- 
versation, she often wept over the gloomy prospects of her country. 
She had every thing that could conduce to happiness, and above 
all, she was contented. Almost with her own hands she had bid 
an Eden to bloom around her, for a lovelier garden never graced 
even a palace, than the one under the shade of whose trees, and 
in the groves of which, she oft6n spent the day in reading, and 
the moonlight evening in reflecting upon the heroic deeds of 
other days. 

In this romantic and secluded abode were the days of Helen 
Mac Trever flowing on smoothly, one after another, like the gentle 
waves of a summer sea, when the British army made its appearance, 
and encamped in the neighborhood. How changed was now the 
scene! The silent solitude, scarcely disturbed before by any 
sound, save that of the woodman's axe; the lonely tinkling of the 
cow-bell; or the song of the rustic returning home in the evening 
to rest; was now filled with the rattling bustle of the camp; the 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 411 

rapid tread of sentries moving to and fro ; the roll of the reveille, 
and the confused mingling of voices. 

It was the custom of Helen Mac Trever to ride her fiery charger 
every day along the road that runs down the Brandywine, and from 
thence strike into the country many miles. 

"Dear father," said Helen one morning, "I am almost afraid to 
venture my noble charger to-day." 

"Why so, my child?" enquired the father, laying down his 
spectacles. 

"I had an ugly dream last night, and imagined that I was lost 
in a woodland, from whence I was carried off by a stranger." 

"Poh! poh ! child, do you believe in foolish dreams? Do you 
not know that Scripture declares that fools build upon dreams?" 

"But, father, Milton also tells us, that — 

' Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep ;' 

and may they not be commissioned to tell us of our danger? 
May they not whisper to us of good or evil during our dreams?" 

"Why, really you are becoming superstitious," returned her 
father. "I thought you had too much sense to entertain such 
nonsense." 

"Ah! father, it is not only the ignorant who are superstitious, 
if you are pleased to call it so. Many of the wisest men that 
ever dignified and adorned the pages of history, entertained 
such nonsense, and believed in supernatural revelations." 

"Well, well," said the Colonel, laughing, "go, take your ride, 
and if none of the red-coats carry you off, I am satisfied." 

Helen rose, with a smile, and went forth to her steed that stood 
at the door. Scarcely had she gracefully sprung upon the saddle, 
for young ladies were not so delicately helpless then as now, ere 
she was out of sight. Revolutionary ladies were accustomed to 
ride on horseback, and it is for the want of the wholesome exercise 
that they indulged in, that the ladies of the present day are a puny, 
sickly race, often fading away with consumption in the bloom and 
beauty of life. 

It was a beautiful morning. The sunlight rested on the circum- 
ambient hills as calmly as a smile on the face of infancy. Helen 
had enjoyed a long ride, and in a full gallop, was returning to her 
happy home, when suddenly turning an angle in the road, her 
horse espied a British ofticer in full uniform. With affright he 
leaped forward, and ran down the road with the speed of a rein- 



412 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

deer. Though her horse became ungovernable, she heroically 
kept her seat in the saddle, until he stumbled and threw her with 
great violence on a green bank by the road-side. The officer, 
Major Sandford, of the British army, whose sudden appearance 
had frightened the horse, immediately pursued, and coming up, 
found Helen perfectly insensible. Running down to the Brandy- 
wine, he obtained some water in a leathern cup, such as hunts- 
men in England carry with them; and washing the blood from 
her brow, which was slightly cut, he bathed her face until he saw 
signs of returning life. In a short time consciousness was re- 
stored, and imagine her feelings, when opening her eyes, she be- 
held kneeling at her side the handsomest man upon whom her 
eyes had ever gazed. When their eyes met, a crimson blush 
suffused her cheek, and she started up with apparent fright; but 
he gently took her hand, and detaining her, said — " Be not alarmed, 
gentle lady, you have nothing to fear from a British officer. So 
far from being your enemy, I will protect you with my life, and I 
beg the favor to accompany you home." 

The tones of his voice fell musically on the ears of Helen, and 
called up confused recollections from the depths of memory. 

"Have I not seen you in New York?" she enquired, as she 
arose and walked onward. "I think it was last spring at a ball." 

"Ah! yes," returned the Major, "and many an hour did I re- 
gret your departure. It gives me exquisite pleasure to meet you 
again." 

They had indeed met in New York, and a mutual flame of re- 
gard had been kindled on the altar of each of their hearts. Major 
Sandford was a gay, dashing fellow, whose personal beauty was 
his whole stock in trade, for he was not remarkable for intellectual 
wealth, though he possessed the cacoethes loquendi; could skim 
the surface of matters, and by touching upon a hundred subjects 
in an hour, lead the less informed to suppose that he was a genius 
of the first water. It was singular that Helen, possessing such 
extraordinary mental endowments, should conceive a regard for a 
man of inferior mind; for women almost universally appreciate 
men for their sterling qualities, while, on the contrary, men, how- 
ever refined, admire the other sex almost entirely for personal 
beauty. Women, however illiterate, have a much higher estimate 
of literature and intellectual endowments in men, than men have 
in women; hence we very often see an illiterate beautiful woman 
wedded to a man of talents and learning; but very seldom do we 
find an illiterate man united to a woman of wreat mind. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 413 

Talking of New York and its gayeties, Helen and the Major 
approached the shady avenue that led up to the mansion. Here 
they met Colonel Mac Trever, Avho surveyed the British officer 
with feelings of disgust, suspicion and repugnance. Helen, how- 
ever, without noticing her father's countenance, gracefully intro- 
duced the Major, and invited him to enter the parlor. Here they 
were some hours alone together, for Col. Mac Trever, whose pre- 
judices were very strong, would not enter; and that regard which 
had been kindled in New York, was fanned into a flame, for Helen 
was a creature of impulse. When the Major retired, the Colonel 
made his appearance, with a dark scowl upon his face. Helen 
began to relate the adventures of the day, but the angry father, 
without deigning to listen, cut her narrative short. 

"Can it be possible," he exclaimed, directing on his astonished 
daughter a withering look, "that Helen Mac Trever will stoop to 
the society of an enemy of her country? Can you countenance a 
foe to freedom, who this very day may imbrue his hands in the 
blood of your brave brother, who is now battling for liberty in the 
ranks of the great and good George Washington? For shame ! 
Let me never again see you bestow a smile upon an enemy, who 
would not hesitate to make midnight glitter with your burnino- 
home." 

"But, father—" 

"No buts, if you please," interrupted the agitated Colonel, 
rising from his seat and pacing the room. "That red-coat shall 
never again darken my door, if I can prevent it." 

"Let me inform you, sir, without intending any disrespect," re- 
turned Helen, raising herself to her full height, and assumino- an 
air of dignified importance, "that the cause of American freedom 
is as dear to my heart as to yours, or to that of any other patriot, 
but, at the same time, I hope I shall never forget that respect 
which is due to a flag of truce, and to the politeness of a well- 
bred gentleman, be that gentleman a friend or foe to my country. 
Though nationally at enmity, it is no reason that we should be in- 
dividually so." 

"Very pretty logic, 'pon my word!" retorted the exasperated fa- 
ther, who in his enmities was unrelentingly severe. "Well, well; 
if you prefer the society of your country's bitter enemy, encourage 
him ; and when his hands are reeking with the gore of your 
slaughtered brother and countrymen, marry him, and go to Eng- 
land and starve. You cannot remain with me, or expect a penny 
from one who bears the name of Mac Trever." 



414 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. 

This was severer language than Helen had ever received from 
her father, and she could not refrain from bursting into tears. 

"Dearest father," she at length said, "he is nothing to me more 
than a friend; and as he has always acted the part of a gentleman, 
I cannot but respect him as such." 

"I see," retorted the Colonel, "how strong your friendship is; 
and it is with you, as I have found it to be the case with every 
woman I ever knew, when she once fixes her mind upon a man, 
and she generally chooses the man that all the world beside would 
have rejected, not all the angels in heaven can persuade her to re- 
linquish him. But be it so; — you can repent at your leisure." 

"But, my dear father, what if we could win him over to the 
cause of American freedom? That would be a glorious achieve- 
ment!" 

"Ay, if you could do that," returned the father, his countenance 
relaxing and his eye brightening, "it would indeed be glorious, 
and willingly would I give him your hand; but these red-coats are 
true to old George, their master, and I'll have nothing to do with 
them." 

Here the conversation was interrupted, and Helen left the room. 
She was in a quandary how to dispose of her lover, for she had 
conceived for him feelings warmer than friendship, and knowing 
her father's violent temper and prejudice, she feared that if Major 
Sandford should visit the house, some evil consequence might fol- 
low. She, therefore, met him by stealth by moonlight, in the 
Scotch mode of courtship. In an alcove in the garden, which 
was cultivated by Helen's own fair hands, they met; but it was not 
long before the prying eye of the father suspected the arrange- 
ment, and gave orders that if any man came on the premises, near 
the building at dead of night, to fire upon him. According to or- 
der, old Mike, the overseer, loaded his gun, and without commu- 
nicating anything to Helen, prepared to take his stand in a sum- 
mer-house, covered with vines, in the lower part of the garden, 
and very near the alcove where Helen and Sandford met. The 
hiding place Mike had chosen, was so completely covered with 
vines, that a person secreted in it could see everything in the ave- 
nue leading to the building, and yet be invisible to any one ap- 
proaching. There he sat, with his well loaded musket, until the 
"witching time of night," when ghosts are said to walk. 

Helen, unconscious of any danger, put on her brother's cloak 
and hat, and stealing down stairs, softly unbarred the door, and 
stole cautiously along the avenue. She had approached within 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFOltl) HARD. 415 

ten steps of the summer-house, ere the sound of her footstep fell 
on Mike's ear, and roused him from his dreamy state. Instanler 
he raised the deadly musket to his shoulder. 

"Aha!" he mentally exclaimed, "the red-coat comes in dis- 
guise, but I'll reveal who he is." 

At this eventful moment, big with fate, he had taken deliberate 
aim at Helen's heart, and would have jriven her to the grave, but 
she spoke; and her silvery accents were so familiar to his ear that 
he recognized her. 

"Ha!" exclaimed Helen, "he comes! — I see his graceful form 
amid the tall trees of the park!" 

The next minute Major Sandford appeared in the alcove, and 
would have clasped Helen in his arms, but she waved him back 
and said, with a dignified air — "Nay, nay, Major, we meet not 
here for a love dalliance to-night, but on business dear to my 
heart, and to my country." 

She spoke in a low tone, and Mike could catch but a word oc- 
casionally. He resolved, however, not to fire, but to listen, as he 
might, perhaps, detect a treasonable plot. 

"What are the terms you speak of?" said the Major. 
"I can never consent to your proposition," returned Helen, 
"until you forsake the unjust cause you have espoused, and join 
the glorious little band now struggling for freedom. In other 
words, I will never consent to give you my hand, until you swear 
to betray General — " 

"Treason, by the dads!" exclaimed old Mike, forgetting himself, 
who had only been able to hear part of the conversation. 

"Hark!" cried the Major, starting, "did you not hear a voice?" 

"No, it was but the wind sighing in the trees." 

"Could you love a traitor?" enquired the Major scrutinizingly. 

"Ay," returned Helen, "when the traitor betrays a tyrant, and 

succors the oppressed. Indeed he is no traitor, who betrays the 

vicious desires of a despot; and who, in espousing the cause of 

the injured, avenges their wrongs. No, Major Sandford, he can 

never merit the appellation of a traitor, who flies from vice to 

virtue — who forsakes a cause that is positively wrong." 

"You are well skilled in moral philosophy, I see," said the 
Major, "but shall I turn against the land of my birth, and the 
home of my fathers?" 

"Are we not all of the same country? returned Helen- "And 
were one part of your household to oppress the other, would you 
not espouse the cause of the oppressed." 



416 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"I certainly would," replied the Major, "but the oath of alle- 
giance! — ay, the oath I have taken to — " 

"An unrighteous oath," interrupted Helen, "is not binding. 
No, sir, an oath extorted by a tyrant to oppress the weak and en- 
slave your fellow-man, is not binding — I say it is not binding in 
the sight of Heaven. God will never sanction an oath unholy in 
its object and in its end." 

Old Mike had now fallen asleep, and Major Sandford was on 
the horns of a dilemna. At first he started with horror at the pro- 
position of Helen, but the more he entertained the idea, and 
the more he listened to the philosophic reasoning of the fair pa- 
triot, the less hideous it appeared. And thus it ever is. The 
mind familiarizes itself with even the idea of the commission of 
the worst of crimes. Though it may shudder at first, if it suffer 
itself to entertain that idea, it is lost. The more Major Sandford 
thought of renouncing his allegiance, the less horrible it seemed; 
and he found his mind wavering. 

"It is far nobler," continued Helen Mac Trever, perceiving the 
influence of her eloquence, "and far less heinous in the sight of 
God to break an unrighteous oath to a tyrant, than to fulfil that 
oath by crushing the oppressed, and carrying death and devasta- 
tion to the homes of helpless wives and children. Your heart, 
Major, was never designed by Heaven to glut its vengeance on 
those who are struggling only for their rights, and have done no 
wrong." 

"Almost," ejaculated the Major, "thou persuadest me to be a 
patriot; a rebel. But if I break my oath of allegiance, how could 
you pl^ce confidence in my oath to liberty?" 

"I could place confidence in you," quickly returned Helen, 
"because you would act honestly to your conscience, and justly 
to the oppressed, by breaking an unholy oath to a tyrant. He who 
acts justly and honestly, can never betray." 

The eye of Sandford glittered at the thought of obtaining the 
hand, and with it the fortune of Helen. He was one of those men, 
whose judgment, weak and vacillating, may be swayed by the sug- 
gestions of even inferior minds; and before the powerful appeals 
of Helen, his objections were scattered like the mists of the morn- 
ing before the luminary of day. 

" In what then can I serve you ?" enquired the Major, pressing 
her hand between both of his, and gazing anxiously in her eyes. 

" You can serve me, or rather my country, and the sacred cause 
of humanity, justice and the rights of man," returned Helen, while 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 417 

her heart beat with unusual enthusiasm, " by assisting a handful 
of men to recover their birth-right." 

" But in what manner ?" 

"By betraying General Howe, the jackal! of the lion, George 
III, into the hands of the brave Washington, or those of any of his 
Generals. This will be the first step. You have solicited my 
hand in marriage, but never until — " 

"But should I fail," interrupted Sandford, "death, ignominious 
death would be my portion." 

"Should you triumph in the attempt," said Helen solemnly, 
" my hand and heart, and all that I possess of this world, shall 
joyously be given to you ; but should you fail, and your life be the 
forfeit, then I swear to die with you." 

"Then, by heavens!" exclaimed Sandford, "for such a prize it 
shall be done, or I will perish in the attempt." 

Helen seized his hand with enthusiasm, and bade him good night, 
as she turned to retrace her steps to the mansion. 

"Nay," returned the Major, "let us ramble over these roman- 
tic hills, and fix upon the plan you have suggested." 

Helen agreed to his proposal and wandered with him through 
the lonely woodland ; but she returned to her room long before 
the god of day made his appearance. Old Mike snored in the 
summer-house until the morning dawned, when he roused up, 
scratched his head, and flew to the mansion to unburthen himself. 

"Aha!" he exclaimed mentally, "I always thought that girl 
had a sneaking notion to the tory side ; and now, though I didn't 
hear all, I'm satisfied." 

Scarcely had Colonel Mac Trever dressed himself and buckled 
his shoes, ere Mike made his appearance, with his hat in his hand, 
and a grinning smile on his ugly face, that had not been washed 
in a week. 

" Well, Mike, what luck with the red-coat?" 

" Your honor may well ask that, you may. While I was sitten 
and sitten and sitten last night, watching for a red-coal, who 
should come along with a cloak and hat on but a man, and he 
wasn't a man neither." 

" Well what, in the name of Banquo's ghost, was it?" enquired 
the Colonel, laughing at the simplicity of Mike. 

" Why, your honor, jest as I was aguine to shoot, I diskivered 
it was Miss Helen that I tuck to be a man. So I didn't shoot, 
but sot and sot and sot, and listened to her and some feller layin 

r.3 



418 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

a plot to betray Gineral Washington, and to upset freedom and 
every thing." 

"That scoundrel has bewitched my daughter," exclaimed the 
enraged Colonel, "and he shall be arrested." 

" Aha ! your honor, that's right ; he's nothin no how but a fortin 
hunter, that wants to turn matrimony into a matter-of-money. 
They'll betray our Gineral this night." 

" Well," said the Colonel, " let not another word fail from your 
lips on the subject, and the villain shall be caught in his own trap, 
and swing on the first tree." 

"Not another word, your honor; no, no, no, not another 
word;" and Mike bowed himself out of the room. 

It was late when Helen came down to the breakfast table, and 
her heart was full of the romantic adventure which she and Sand- 
ford had been planning. But she said not a word, for she wished 
to surprise her father by the consummation of the stratagem. She 
knew that if successful, it would at once win his heart in favor of 
her lover; and knowing how suspicious he was, she would not 
mention to him the incipient plan. Colonel Mac Trever was also 
silent, in regard to what old Mike had told him ; because he very 
well knew that to speak of it would defeat his intention, by giving 
the alarm. Still he could not entirely conceal his emotions, nor 
could he treat Helen with his usual civility and affection ; for he 
considered her a confirmed tory, manufactured by the hands of 
Sandford. 

Night came, and the plan was to be put in operation. A note 
had been addressed to the Commander-in-Chief of the American 
army, to appoint two or three officers who should meet the writer 
at a certain hour of the night at a certain spot, and that then and 
there General Howe, commander of the British army, would be 
betrayed into their power. A note was also addressed to General 
Howe, stating that if he would make his appearance at the same 
time and place, that General Washington would be betrayed into 
his hands. Unluckily, the manuscript of the latter note had been 
dropped in the alcove, and found by Col. Mac Trever. This con- 
firmed what he had been told by Mike, that General Washington 
was to be betrayed ; for he did not comprehend the intention of 
the note to General Howe. 

The place of meeting was a lonely one, not very far distant from 
the old Quaker meeting-house. General Washington, suspecting 
some treachery, sent two men in disguise, whom Sandford sup- 
posed to be the Marcpjis de la Fayette, and (ho Count Pulaski. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFOKD BARD. 41".* 

It was a singular circumstance, that the per.-<on of Colonel Mac 
Trever so miicli resembled that of General Howe, that in the dark 
he might easily be mistaken for that person. The Colonel dressed 
himself in the military dress he had worn in the French war, and 
followed by Mike and two or three stout men, started for the 
place of meeting. His attendants were secreted within the sound 
of his voice, while he approached the spot. His face was muffled, 
so that Sandford could not scan his features by the dim light; but 
so confident was he that it was Gen. Howe who approached, that 
he advanced, laid his hand upon his shoulder, and said, "General, 
you are my prisoner." 

"No, by heavens?" exclaimed the Colonel, "General Wash- 
ington is not your prisoner; but, sir, I know you are mine." 

And he o-ave a shrill whistle, which echoed through the sombre 
solitudes around ; and to the utter astonishment of Major Sand- 
ford, several stalwart men rushed forth from the thicket. So un- 
expected was this, that the Major was paralyzed. 

"Seize the villainous traitor," cried Colonel Mac Trever, and 
in an instant half a dozen Herculean hands held him as firmly as 
the jaws of a vice. 

"What means this?" enquired Donald Mac Trever, for he was 
one of the men whom Washington had sent. 

"Let me explain this matter," said the Major, recognizing the 
Colonel, "and you, sir, will not call me a traitor or a villain." 

" Away with him, men; I have an explanation of the whole 
affiiir, in his own hand-writing, in my pocket — I'll hear no more." 

Major Sandford found himself in an awkward dilemma, for he 
was on both horns; having committed himself on both sides. 
The note to General Howe, which the Colonel had found, was 
shown to Donald and his companion, who became enraged, and 
were ready to take instant vengeance. Sandford was, however, 
pinioned, and conveyed to a dungeon beneath the mansion of 
Colonel Mac Trever, which in other days had served for a wine 
cellar. In this gloomy abode, he sat down upon a fragment of 
granite, and began to reflect upon his situation. If he ac- 
knowledged his intention to betray W^ashington, he would incur 
the vengeance of the American army, and vice versa. 

"Oh I woman," he exclaimed, " you are at the bottom of every 
thing. How many wars have you not incited ? How many em- 
pires have flourished but to fall, by your intrigues? The proud 
palaces of Priam, and ihe lofty towers of Troy, by your charms 
were laid level with the dust ! Yea I by your fascinating influence, 



420 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORU BARD. 

in the garden of Eden, mankind fell ! But you have atoned — you 
have redeemed your character. By you was brought into the 
world that glorious character, who hung the rainbow of redemp- 
tion round a dying world. By you, Christopher Columbus was 
enabled to discover a new continent. By you, Rome was saved ; 
and by you, I shall yet be liberated from my perilous situation." 

But where, in the mean time, was the heroic Helen ? She had 
been listening to the stormy wrath of her enraged father, and had 
retired to her room, to meditate on the means of liberating Sand- 
ford; or, in the event of failure, to perish with him. But how 
was she to effect his liberation ? Every door leading to his sub- 
terraneous abode was locked, barred and bolted, and eagle eyes 
were vigilant in watching. The only internal avenue was through 
a trap-door in the kitchen, and that had been locked by Colonel 
Mac Trever, and the key secreted. 

Sandford dreaded every hour that a court-martial would sit on 
his case, and condemn him to be hung or shot immediately, for 
every soldier dreads an ignominious death a thousand times more 
than to fall in battle. He knew that to asseverate his innocence, 
in regard to the betrayal of Washington, would be useless, so long 
as Colonel Mac Trever had the written note to General Howe in 
his possession, and if he could explain the matter to the satisfac- 
tion of the Americans, he would then become an object of ven- 
geance in the eyes of the British. He, therefore, silently awaited 
the fiat of fate. 

But he was safe for the present. The American army was busy 
in making preparation for a general engagement the next day, the 
long remembered eleventh of September. General Washington, 
with the forethought and discretion which distinguished him, was 
arranging every thing to the best advantage that regarded his posi- 
tion, and left nothing undone that he thought would have a ten- 
dency to secure victory to the American arms. Many a heart 
beat high that day, that on the next, ere the golden sun should 
sink behind the western hills, should pour out its reeking gore on 
the battle-field. 

Helen was resolved to free Sandford from his perilous situation 
at all hazards, and in the absence of her father she ransacked the 
whole building in search of the key, which unlocked the door of 
the cellar in the kitchen. After a long search she discovered a 
bunch of old keys, and great was her joy in the confident belief 
that one of them would unlock the door. But she dared not try 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 421 

the experiment until night should favor her, and sleep bury the 
senses of her watchful father in forgetfulness. 

Helen saw with pleasure the sun go down, and the shadows of 
evening steal softly among the flowery groves and grottoes of her 
garden. She retired to her room and anxiously awaited the hour 
of midnight. Scarcely had the old Dutch clock lolled the hour of 
twelve, ere she stole softly down the stairway, and with trembling 
limbs approached the door of the cellar. Key after key she tried 
without effect, until they had all been tried but one. With a pal- 
pitating heart she applied it to the lock and found it would not 
answer. Hope fled from her, and she sunk overpowered by her 
feelings, on the floor. She had sworn to die with Sandford, in the 
event of his detection by the British, and she now saw no other 
alternative but to die. But at this critical moment, the recollec- 
tion flashed upon her mind, that she had seen a key hanging in the 
room where her father slept. But could she venture there to obtain 
it? And if she should be so fortunate as not to awake her slum- 
bering sire, it might not be the right key ! Great was the distress 
of her mind, but she nevertheless resolved to hazard the attempt, 
and accordingly crept softly to the door, and gently opened it. 
She listened to ascertain whether her father slept, and discovered 
by the sound of his breathing that he did. Upon her knees, she 
then crawled, with a palpitating heart, across the room, to the wall 
where the key hung, but in clambering on a chair to reach it, she 
fell. Startled by the noise, the Colonel awoke and roused up. 
The frightened Helen, stretched upon the floor, did not move; 
and after rubbing his eyes, he fell back and was again soon lost in 
slumber. At the second attempt she obtained the key, and crept 
softly out of the room. To her inexpressible joy it unlocked the 
door, and she descended the stairway. All was silent as the city 
of the dead. Sandford, wearied by the intensity of his thoughts, 
had sunk into deep sleep, 

"Tired nature's sweet restorer;" 

and lost to a consciousness of his situation, was indulging in de- 
licious dreams of happy by-gone days. Startled by the voice of 
Helen, he suddenly awoke with the idea that he had been doomed 
to die, and that a summons had come to convey him to the place 
of execution. But great was his joy when he beheld his deliverer, 
in the person of her who had become the charm of his existence 
and the angel of his heart. 



422 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Why, Helen, have you ventured here?" he enquired in a 
melancholy tone. "You will incur your father's vengeance if 
discovered." 

"Fear not for me," replied the heroic girl; "woman will dare 
anything for the man she loves — yea! when all the world forsakes, 
she will follow him to the dungeon, and though covered with 
crime, will clasp the victim in his chains. But there is no time to 
be lost in the waste of words. You must fly this instant. I have 
come to save you. or perish in the attempt." 

"But," returned Sandford, "by what means can I escape? 
There are watchful eyes about the building, and to elude their vig- 
ilance is impossible. I saw a man but a minute ago pass the 
grated window, and he would recognize and stop me." 

Helen was for a moment lost in thought. She then bade Sand- 
ford be of good cheer, and flew up the stairway with the agility of 
a gazelle. In a short time she returned wiih one of her own 
dresses, a long cloak and bonnet. 

" Haste, haste," she cried, " put on this dress over your own, 
and you may pass out and be mistaken for me. Nay, not another 
word; I will meet you to-morrow night at the old Quaker meet- 
ing-house — away, quick! quick!" 

Major Sandford hastily put on the dress; followed Helen up the 
long, narrow flight of stairs, and emerged alone from the building, 
after having imprinted a kiss on the fair hand of Helen, and bade 
her adieu. As he passed out of the yard into the shady avenue 
which led to the outer gate, he was just beginning to congratulate 
himself on his security, when suddenly the form of a man started 
out from the umbrageons shrubbery on the side of the avenue. 
He was one of the guards employed by Colonel Mac Trever, who 
had never seen Helen but once, and did not remember her coun- 
tenance. Advancing, he hailed Major Sandford, and approaching 
closely, looked into his face. His great beauty, smooth face, and 
the effect of a bonnet, led the guard to believe that Helen Mac 
Trever stood before him, and he merely muttered in a guttural 
tone — "You can pass, madam." 

Sandford's heart beat at that moment with increased rapidity, 
for he stood ready, if discovered and the alarm were given, to 
draw a pistol, which he had concealed, shoot down the guard, and 
fly for his life. Fortunately nothing of the kind occurred; and in 
a short time he was beyond the reach of pursuit, and lost in the 
dim shadows of the forest. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 423 

The next morning the sun arose in all his brilliant glory, shed- 
ing his rays over the peaceful hills and valleys, where the cattle 
were grazing, and gilding the lofty tops of the woodlands with his 
golden light, which was destined in the evening to fall upon a 
Held of blood and carnage. All was now activity in the camp of 
Washington, and many a heart beat high with hope and chivalrous 
feeling, that ere another sun should rise would be still in death. 
A deep solemnity pervaded every countenance, when the news 
came and the tidings spread from rank to rank, that tlie British 
army was approaching, though every man stood firm, and every 
arm was nerved for the contest. But the contradictory accounts 
of the movements of the British army which came in, embarrassed 
General Washington; and for a time he knew not what course to 
pursue, until it was ascertained that a division of the enemy's 
army, commanded by General Knyphausen, had made its appear- 
ance at Chadd's Ford, with the pretence of crossing the Brandy- 
wine. The left wing of the American army was posted near that 
spot, and like a whirlwind the brave sons of freedom rushed down 
from the hill. The arrows of death flew thick and fast; the thunder 
of battle reverberated along the romantic hills of the Brandywine, 
and dense clouds of smoke enveloped the combatants and rolled 
up into the heavens. There was heard the clash of arms, and the 
death shriek of the falling heroes. 

At two o'clock, a single horseman came on the wings of the 
wind, to inform General Washington that the main body of the 
British army had crossed the Brandywine higher up, and was 
about to attack the right flank of his right wing, which he ordered 
to change its position. It had no sooner done so, than it was at- 
tacked with tremendous fury. For a time the carnage was 
dreadful, and every inch of ground was disputed ; till at length, 
on account of the superior nucnbers of the British, the Americans 
had to give way, and retreat upon the centre, which was then 
coming up to support the right wing. Here the contest was des- 
perate, but the centre also ga\-8 way, and retreated down to 
Chadd's Ford, where Knyphausen had just crossed over and at- 
tacked the left wing. Sandford had been an actor in the whole 
battle, and fought with the desperation of a tiger in the American 
cause. 

The battle raged with increased fury, and many fought hand to 
hand. Sandford was dealing death around him. Suddenly he 
saw a powerful Hessian cleave an American to the earth; he saw 
him in the act of running a bayonet through him, when he sud- 



424 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

denly wheeled, drew a pistol from his belt and fired. The ball en- 
tered an eye of the Hessian, and he fell dead on the spot. In an- 
other moment Sandford was hurried away to another station, and 
did not discover who it was whom he had rescued from death. 
Onward still rolled the dreadful tide of war, and for a time the re- 
sult seemed doubtful; but at length the whole American army, 
overcome by superior numbers, gave way, and retreated to 
Chester. Though great valor was displayed by Washington's 
men, particularly by a brigade of Virginia troops, yet owing to the 
fact that the muskets had been obtained from different sources, 
and were of different sizes, the cartridges not being fitted to them 
all, may be attributed the defeat of the American army, to say 
nothing of the disparity of numbers. 

From the balcony of Col. Mac Trever's house seated on a high 
hill which overlooked the whole country, Helen had witnessed the 
battle at Chadd's Ford, and now that it was over, she flew to the 
dreadful scene to learn the fate of her brother, for she was not 
aware that Sandford had taken part in the battle. What a sight 
was there? W^hat a havoc had been made that day? Twelve 
hundred American hearts had ceased to beat, and about half that 
number of British heroes had bitten the dust. The British were 
conveying their wounded to the Quaker meeting-house, of which 
ihey made a hospital, and Helen recoiled with horror, as she gazed 
on the dead and listened to the groans of the dying, who were 
promiscuously heaped together. Here all animosity had subsided. 
Here was seen an American soldier, resting his dying head on the 
bosom of a Briton ; and there was a fainting Hessian, supported 
by an American. The feelings, which had actuated their hearts 
in the heat of battle, had subsided in their helpless, mangled con- 
dition, and feelings of mutual dependence had taken their place. 
To every face and form, from which the spouting gore was ebbing, 
Helen directed her eye; and she turned to leave a scene which 
she found too horrible to endure. As she was retreating from the 
field, the sound of her own name faintly fell upon her ear. She 
turned, and saw a man reclining against a tree and bleeding. 

'•Good heavens," she exclaimed, "it is Sandford." 

"Ay," returned the Major, "and unless I can immediately be 
concealed, or conveyed from this spot, I am lost — undone." 

As he spoke, his face became ghastly pale; he relaxed his hold 
upon the tree, and fell his whole length on the green sward — he 
had fainted from loss of blood. Helen delayed not a moment, 
but fled with the speed of a reindeer. In a short time she returned 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 425 

with her own noble steed, and assisted Sandford to mount; bidding 
him fly to Wilmington, as the American army had retreated to 
Chester, and she feared he would be arrested under the mistake 
which had occurred with her father. 

Colonel Mac Trever, in the mean time, was raving in anger at 
the escape of Major Sandford, and as he had discovered in regard 
to the key that Helen had been concerned in the matter, he de- 
nounced her as a traitor to her country, and would not deign to 
listen a moment to her elucidation of the transaction. 

"Never, never," he exclaimed, "shall she again be called my 
daughter, and not one farthing will I bestow upon or bequeath to 
her. Ah! here they come with my wounded son, who has shed his 
blood in the sacred cause of freedom, and far sooner would I see 
her stretched stark and stiff in death, than thus to behold her the 
accomplice of the deadly enemy of her country." 

Helen, finding that it was useless to reason with her father, and 
satisfied that her brother was not mortally wounded, privately left 
her home in which she had spent so many happy days, and was 
in Wilmington the next day after Sandford had arrived. Great 
was his joy to find her so devoted. That night he led her to the 
altar of the old Presbyterian church of Wilmington, where they 
were united in the holy bonds of wedlock. But the excitement 
of the occasion, added to the irritation caused by the wound he 
had received, brought on a fever, which for a long time stretched 
him on his bed. They had both, like many other very sensible 
people, leaped into matrimony without due consideration — without 
bestowing one thought on the means by which they were to live. 
Helen had been accustomed to plenty all her life, without any 
exertion on her part, and it seemed so natural to have every thing she 
expressed a desire for, that it never entered her mind that matters 
could be otherwise. But a change was destined to come over 
the spirit of her dream. The constant outgoing without any in- 
come, soon exhausted the funds which the Major had been enabled 
to save, and Helen awoke to the reality of her situation. But she 
was not as one without hope. She could not, she would not 
believe that her father would turn a deaf ear to her cries, in case 
of necessity, seeing that her husband was unable to provide for her, 
on account of his wounds. But she would not mortify herself by 
the application for relief until necessity compelled her to do so. 

"My dear," said Helen one day as she sat by the bedside, "you 
need some medicines, and if you will suffer me to go for them, 
I can buy them to better advantage than the servant." 
54 



426 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"Alas!" exclaimed Sandford, "I have but one dollar in the 
world remaining, and we shall be compelled to discharge the 
servant and wait upon ourselves." 

At these ominous words, a cold chill ran through Helen's heart, 
and casting a retrospective glance, at the period when she never 
expressed a wish that was not gratified, she burst into tears; but 
ashamed of her weakness, she hastily wiped them away. 

"Be of good cheer, my husband," she said, "in my younger 
years I was taught all manner of needle-work, and painting, and 
by the exercise of my hands I can provide for our necessity." 

A tear stood in the eye of Sandford, when he thought of the 
home from which he had taken her, and a sigh escaped from his 
bosom, at the thought that he had brought her to poverty and want- 
Yet he admired her spirit ; for there is no bravery like that which 
manfully buffets the storm of adversity. Many a man has braved 
death at the cannon's mouth, who has sunk overpowered by the 
privations of poverty and the horrors of want. 

Helen now applied herself to her needle, and worked day and 
night by the bed-side of her sick husband ; but with all her exertions, 
she could scarcely supply the cheapest necessaries of life. Finding 
her exertions futile, it was resolved that they should remove to Phila- 
delphia; but, alas! where were they to obtain the necessary funds? 
After mature deliberation, Helen resolved that she would dispose 
of her jewels; but the very thought brought tears into her eyes, for 
they were the gift of her sainted mother. Thrice did she go to 
the jeweller, and as often did she return without disposing of 
them. When sold, they brought but a pittance, very little more 
than sufficient to defray their expenses to Philadelphia. Luckily 
she was acquainted with a very generous and pious woman, of 
the excellent society of Friends, whose name was Shipley, who 
had often shown disinterested acts of friendship towards her and 
many others, and who now pressed upon her the acceptance of 
a sum of money. It was this lady, Elizabeth Shipley, who in her 
dying moments uttered the prophecy, which was published and 
generally circulated at that time, when the British had been vic- 
torious at Brandywine; were in possession of Philadelphia, and 
the American people were desponding; "that the invader, though 
then successful, should be driven out, and the cause of American 
freedom should be triumphant." 

On board of a small craft, for very few vessels then sailed from 
the port of Wilmington, Helen conveyed her wounded husband; 
and sad were her thoughts when she landed on the wharf at 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 427 

Philadelphia. The last time she had visited that city, she was 
happy, and in possession of every thing that her heart could desire, 
without any fear for the future; but now she had fled from her 
father, with his frown resting upon her, and had a wounded husband 
to minister to and support; with but precarious means to do so, 
and the constant fear of coming to abject want. Those who have 
struggled with adversity from the earliest period of life, know not 
the pangs of poverty ; it is those who have long enjoyed the sweets 
of plenty and have suddenly fallen from affluence, who feel the 
stings of penury and want. It was thus with Helen. But Sand- 
ford was still more wretched at the recollection of having been 
the cause of the sorrow, which pressed upon the heart of Helen. 
Helen, however, was too noble, too generous, to confess that she 
was suffering the pangs of poverty, and it was only by an unguard- 
ed sigh or tear that he could detect the emotions of her soul. 
Diligently through the day, and often till the clock tolled twelve 
at night, did she apply herself to her needle, and was yet barely 
able to supply the necessaries of life. She had disposed of all her 
small stock of jewelry, except a splendid diamond ring, which her 
mother had given her as a keepsake, and to part with this was a 
struggle indeed. But necessity is imperious; and to obtain cloth- 
ing, she was compelled to dispose of it at half the value. When 
she returned to her cheerless dwelling with the proceeds, she 
retired to a secret place, and indulged long in tears. 

Every day the prospects of this ill-fated pair became more 
gloomy; and the wound of Sandford having proved obstinate in 
healing, he was unable to walk or exert himself in any manner. 

" I shall be compelled to write to my father for assistance," said 
Helen one day, as she came in from a fruitless attempt to sell her 
needle-work. "He certainly will not turn a deaf ear to the cry of 
distress, in the hour of penitence, when that appeal is made by 
his own child." 

Sandford was silent — his heart was too full to speak, for he felt 
that he had been the cause of all their suffering. 

"I have sold all my jewelry, and every thing that I can spare," 
continued Helen, as a tear stole down her cheek, "and as a last 
resort, I will write to him for assistance; he can but refuse me, 
though I cannot think he can have the heart to do so." 

Helen sat down to write, full of hope, for he had never refused 
in other days to grant any thing she asked, and she really believed 
that if she humbled herself penitentiaily, and portrayed her forlorn 
and siilfering condition, he would yield to her entreaties. 



428 WRITINGS OF THfi MILFORD BARD. 

Colonel Mac Trever was sitting alone in his sumptuous parlor 
when the letter was brought in; the letter penned by his unhappy 
and suffering daughter. He read it with deep emotion — 

"My Dear Father — Conscious that I have infringed the dictates of fiUal 
affection, and sorry that I have done aught to displease so good a father, I now 
in the depth of humility appeal to you for assistance in my distress. My hus- 
band, grounded in the cause of American freedom, is unable to leave his bed; 
and with the exertion of my hands day and night, I am unable to command 
even the necessaries of Hfe. 1 implore you in the name of my sainted mother, 
not to turn a deaf ear to my appeal, and not to let prejudice excite you against 
my husband-, for you have been deceived in his character. He is the firm 
friend of freedom, and joins me in asking you for the means of support, until 
his wound will permit him to exercise himself for our own benefit. Should 
you turn from us, I see no alternative but the most abject poverty and want." 

The excited father threw down the letter, and walked the floor. 
In the mean time, Helen and her suffering husband were brooding 
over their gloomy fate. Inflammation had increased in the wound, 
which Major Sandford had received, and fears were entertained 
that amputation would be necessary, the bare idea of which, 
plunged Helen into the greatest despondency, though her good 
sense taught her to conceal her emotions, and cherish hope in the 
mind of her suffering husband. The illusions of hope are power- 
ful in a sick chamber, in supporting the mind; and the mind being 
supported, the body sympathizes. Many a life has been sacrificed 
by an injudicious expression uttered by a thoughtless person, 
crushing hope; depressing the mind; and thus, by sympathy, 
prostrating the whole body. 

From day to day, Helen anxiously expected a letter from her 
father, in answer to her own humble epistle. Every morning she 
looked from the window to see the postman coming, and often 
she turned away with a cold foreboding that her angry father 
would not deign to answer. Half her time was occupied in at- 
tending to her disabled husband, and when, by her weary labors 
during the day and night, she had obtained a sufficiency of the 
coarsest food for one day, she knew not from whence that for the 
next was to come. Still in the presence of her husband she held 
out a prospect of better times, though in secret she often indulged 
in the bitterest grief; not for her own sufferings, but for those of 
her poor wounded husband. Helen was exemplifying those noble 
self-sacrificing traits of her sex, which have truly rendered woman 
the angel of the earth, and made her the great moral teacher of 
mankind. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 429 

It was on a dark stormy night, when the spirits of the tempest 
were abroad, and the north wind howled piteously round the 
turrets of the building, that Helen was watching by the couch of 
Sandford in great distress. She could no longer conceal the fact 
that, with all her exertions, the most pinching want was staring 
them in the face, from which she could see no hope of relief. So 
unremitting had been her devotion to her husband, and her atten- 
tion to the means of procuring a subsistence, that she had made 
but few acquaintances; and her pride revolted from calling on 
them for assistance. She had discovered, too, what many others 
have done, that in adversity friendship is like our philosophy: 
when we need it the most, we have the least of it. The story of 
her misfortunes had gone abroa-d among the gay and the grand, 
who had in her days of prosperity welcomed her to their dwelling, 
and were proud to do her honor, and they now turned from her 
with a cold reserve; and in consideration of her homely attire, 
scarcely deigned to salute her on the street. But Helen, whose 
mind was imbued with a knowledge of human nature, did not 
regard the slights of the frivolous, who were unable to judge of the 
diamond's value unless it glittered. 

While the suffering wife was thus consulting with her husband 
on the distressing life of want and misery that lay before them, a 
thundering knock was heard at the door, and Helen flew to open 
it, with anxious expectation. A letter was handed to her, and so 
great was the pleasure that pervaded her heart, that she slammed 
the door in the face of the astonished postman, and returned with 
the speed of lightning, to communicate the happy tidings. 

"Oh! my dear husband," she exclaimed exultingly, "here is a 
letter from my dear father, and hope whispers that it contains 
relief, or, at least the promise of it. Something seemed to whis- 
per that, in all our distress, a better fortune awaited us." 

With smiles on her face, and with an excitement that made her 
hands tremble, she opened the letter and read as follows: 

"My once beloved Daughter — ^You have fled from my roof with a mean 
British spy, and have, therefore, forfeited my protection. You must bring 
stronger proof than you have yet brought, to induce me to beheve that a 
British spy w^as wounded in the cause of freedom. But if you will leave your 
paramour and return to me, I will in mercy guarantee to you a sufficiency to keep 
you from want; but otherwise, not a penny of mine shall ever bless a red-coat. " 

As Helen read the word paramour, her eyes grew dim; her head 
swam with a dizzy sensation; and, ere she finished the letter, she 
fainted and fell upon the floor. 



430 WRITINGS OF THE MiLFORD BARD. 

"Oh! God," she exclaimed, as she recovered, "what is to be- 
come of us? Universal distress pervades the country, and poverty 
stalks abroad. Cruel, cruel father; thus to reflect upon the char- 
acter of a daughter, by calling her husband a paramour! I could 
have borne any thing else; but this is too severe." 

"Well," returned Sandford with a sigh, " it is useless to repine. 
We have one consolation ; we are as low in the scale of poverty 
as we can sink, and if a change takes place it must be for the 
better." 

The next day Helen went forth, with a heavy heart, to dispose 
of some embroidery, which had cost her many weary hours of 
labor. While she was standing at the counter of a fancy store, 
pleading with the proprietor to buy her work, and portraying the 
situation of her wounded husband, a man came in, who, after 
listening some time to her eloquent language, interrogated her to 
know whether she would remove to New York and work for him, 
promising constant employment and good wages. After disposing 
of her work for a pittance, she returned home to consult her husband. 

In the present times of prosperity and plenty, few have any idea 
of the state of the country during that period of privation and dis- 
tress, when war and carnage were scattering ruin over the land. 
Not only was the country bankrupt and business stagnant, but 
great was the burthen under which all classes of society struggled; 
and dreadful were the crimes which sprung from the universal 
poverty and privation that prevailed. 

Helen soon obtained the consent of her husband, and in a few 
days they were domiciled in one of the obscure streets of New 
York, where she diligently set herself down to her needle, though 
she soon found that with constant application, she could gain but 
a very meagre support. But she was cheered by the assurance of 
a physician that Sandford's wound had assumed a healthy aspect, 
and that there was a prospect that it would soon heal; which as- 
surance, in a measure, caused her to disregard the severity of her 
incessant toil. The labor of women then, as at the present day, 
was poorly compensated; affording but a bare subsistence, and 
often falling far short of that. 

Two months after their removal to New York, Sandford had so 
far recovered as to be able to go out; though, from the combined 
effects of privation and suff"ering, he was reduced almost to a skel- 
eton, for often did Helen shed bitter tears when she informed him 
that she had nothing to offer him to eat. There is nothing that 
humiliates the mind so much as penury, and no misfortune so hard 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 431 

to bear as the sudden fall from affluence to poverty; notwithstand- 
ing the fact, that the sudden acquisition of wealth has a greater 
influence over the mind, for good or evil, than any other circum- 
stance. Much had poverty humiliated Helen, for she had seen 
the time when it would have been impossible for her to stoop to 
the needle as the means of subsistence, and her pride would have 
revolted at the idea of wrangling in the shop of a marchand des 
modes for the sale of embroidery. Her acquaintances in New 
York, as well as those in Philadelphia, had forgotten her in adver- 
sity, and passed by her with eyes askance, as she trudged her way 
through rain and snow, dressed in a thin, faded calico dress, to 
obtain food for herself and half-starving husband. They knew her 
not in poverty, though ihey had once been proud of her acquaint- 
ance. Such is the power of the mighty dollar. 

One day when Sandford had gone forth in search of employment, 
he met a man who stared at him with a steadfast gaze, and fol- 
lowed his footsteps to a short distance from the door of his dwell- 
ing. The face of the curious individual he thought he had seen, 
but so much did his mind dwell upon the subject of employment, 
and the means of acquiring a subsistence, and of lessening the bur- 
den of his devoted wife, that the man and his face were soon for- 
gotten. But not many hours had passed, ere a loud knock was 
heard at the street door of their humble dwelling, and the startled 
Helen, dropping her work, and running to the window, beheld 
four or five soldiers waiting for admittance. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as she opened the door, "on what 
errand do you come to this house of suffering? Our sorrows are 
great enough already, without the addition of any more." 

" We come, madam, to arrest a vile spy," replied a hoarse voice, 
"who basely attempted, at Chadd's Ford, to betray the guardian 
spirit of America. Seize him instantly ; he shall not escape again." 

In a moment the weak, attenuated form of Sandford, was in 
the grasp of a powerful gigantic man, who dragged him towards 
the door, while Helen clung to her husband and screamed — "Oh! 
for Heaven's sake have mercy on my poor husband; he is inno- 
cent — he is not guilty of the charge." 

"Away with the villain," roared the same hoarse voice, "and 
let not a woman's tears, or a woman's prayers unman you!" 

As the unrelenting soldiers hurried Sandford out on the street, 
where a great crowd had collected, Helen swooned and fell on 
the floor — I say on the floor, for necessity had compelled her to 
sell the only carpet she possessed to obtain food. Long did she 



432 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

lie there in a state of utter insensibility, and awoke only to a con- 
sciousness of her forlorn condition. When she looked into the 
future, she saw nothing but a continuation of her miseries; for 
hope, the last lingering tenant of Pandora's Box, and the last 
friend of the wretched, had departed. She had often written to 
her father, but her appeals were all in vain. He had deigned to 
answer her but twice. 

Sandford was now incarcerated; and for his especial comfort, 
to speak ironically, he was informed, that it was at the instigation 
of Colonel Mac Trever that he was arrested, and that he might 
expect no favor. Death, ignominious death, was his portion. 
At the same time they shook in his face the manuscript of the 
letter to Gen. Howe, which Col. Mac Trever found in the garden. 

Despair sat upon the brow of Helen, as she wandered, shivering 
through the cold sleety street to the place of her husband's con- 
finement; but no sooner did he assure her that he had nothing to 
expect but death, than all the heroic spirit of the woman rose up 
in her soul. 

"Then I will die with you," she exclaimed, "and one grave 
shall forever hide our wrongs and our wretchedness. I despair of 
ever disabusing my father of the error under which he labors, with 
regard to your guilt; but, perhaps, when he has murdered his own 
daughter, and she sleeps in the grave, some circumstance may 
unravel the mystery, and bring home to his heart the wrongs she 
has endured." 

Every day did the devoted wife seek the gloomy prison of her 
husband, with the view of instilling comfort into his mind. Sand- 
ford feared not death so much as to meet a punishment he did not 
deserve. The court-martial assembled for his trial, and all the 
witnesses were present, save Colonel Mac Trever and his son 
Donald. The Judge-Advocate summoned the witnesses, one by 
one, and the trial proceeded; but not a sympathetic tear fell for 
the unfortunate Sandford. Every heart was embittered against 
him. Helen, who had summoned up all the fortitude she pos- 
sessed, stood up by her husband: but her heart often quailed, as 
the evidence of those who had guardq^d him at Chadd's Ford, 
went to convict him. At length all the evidence had been given, 
save that of Colonel Mac Trever and his son, and as the Court 
were confident that already sufficient had been given to convict 
the prisoner, it was concluded not to wait for them, but to close. 

That night no sleep fell upon the eyelids of Helen Sandford. 
The next day after hastily despatching her scanty morning meal, 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORI> RARD. 433 

she trod with a heavy heart, the street that led to the prison of 
her doomed husband. The prisoner was already arraigned, and, 
as the dreadful word Guilty fell upon her ear, she uttered a 
scream; staggered and would have fallen, had not a bystander 
caught her in his arms. 

"He is innocent! he is innocent!" she at length exclaimed, 
"Heaven is witness he is innocent." 

"Conduct the prisoner away," said the Judge-Advocate. 

"Nay, one moment," cried a voice aloud, and Donald Mac 
Trever, followed by the Colonel, his father, who had just arrived, 
rushed to the spot just after the verdict had been pronounced. 

"It is he, indeed!" exclaimed Donald, after scrutinizing the 
features of Sandford ; "it is the man who, at the risk of his own, 
saved my life during the battle at the Brandy wine, when a powerful 
Hessian had cloven me to the earth. There must be some myste- 
rious mistake in this matter, for I saw this man fighting like a 
tiger in the cause of freedom, during the whole battle." 

Sandford, emboldened by this, handed a paper, which he had 
just written, to Colonel Mac Trever, explaining the whole matter, 
and particularly how the Colonel had been deceived in regard to 
the manuscript letter, which he found in the garden, all of which 
was corroborated by Helen. The matter now wore entirely a 
new face; Sandford was immediately liberated, and Colonel Mac 
Trever advanced; took him by the hand, and expressed his sor- 
row that he had been so much deceived. Joy now lit up the 
faces of Helen and her husband; the anxieties and privations they 
had suffered, were forgotten ; and their young hearts were bound 
by still stronger ties. 

At the earnest solicitation of both the father and son, the happy 
pair, after so much suffering, returned to Chadd's Ford, and in the 
old mansion, freed from all care, and surrounded by every thing 
their hearts could wish, spent many happy days. Sandford, with 
Donald, afterward joined the American army, in which they dis- 
tinguished themselves by their valor; and after Cornwallis was 
taken and the war ended in the triumph of liberty, returned home 
to spend the balance of their lives in honorable ease. From the 
marriage of Helen Mac Trever and Major Sandford, sprung some 
of the most talented and wealthy citizens, who by their virtues 
have dignified and adorned this community; one of whom has 
been honored with a diplomatic commission to Europe, and is now 
a distinguished member of Congress from a neighboring State, 

65 



434 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



I SAW him stretched upon his bed, 

With languid hp and eye: 
No tears for him had yet been shed, 

Tho' he was doomed to die. 
No friends had he, alas! no wife, 

To weep around him now; 
Almost he was alone in life — 

Despair was on his brow. 

One morn I sought his bed, and oh ! 

A touching scene was there; 
A scene that filled my heart with woe, 

A scene of dark despair; 
A little girl, his only child, 

Stood gazing in his eye. 
Oft crying out, in accents wild, 

"Dear father, will you die?" 

The dying father turned his head 

To gaze upon her charms, 
A tear upon her cheek he shed. 

And clasped her in his arms. 
He strove to speak in tender tone. 

And while in grief she cried, 
"Dear father leave me not alone," 

He groaned — and wept — and died. 

To Potter's Field I saw him borne. 

To lie beneath the sod; 
There was but one for him to mourn, 

And three to break the clod; 
No funeral pomp, no funeral prayer. 

No funeral emblems wave; 
One little girl alone stood there, 

And wept upon his grave. 

Had he possess 'd of gold a store, 
I He might have been a knave; 
Yet hundreds would have found hi.*! door, 

And followed to his grave. 
And thus it is, and was of old — 

Disguise it as you can — 
The man has made a god of gold, 

And money makes the man. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 435 



^^Ollgljti 



Excited in my mind, while standing on the battle-ground at Chadd's Ford; where, 
on the lllh of September, 1777, icas Jovght the famous Battle of Brandyioine. 

I HAVE visited many battle and duelling grounds, but never have I witnessed so romantic 
a scene or so lovely a landscape, as when I ascended the lofty hill on which General 
Washington took his stand, and poured down a deadly fire on the enemy in the valley. 
In company with a party of literary gentlemen, I enjoyed the splendid prospect, while 
imagination pictured to my view the grand drama that had been enacted there in other days. 
It is a beautiful rolling country, and from the summit of the hill the variegated landscape 
extends as far as the eye can reach in all directions. But no mementoes are left of tlie 
battle. A calm sunshine and solitary silence now rest on those fields, those hills and val- 
leys, which have been drenched with American and British blood. 

Oh ! can it be that on this lovely land, 

Where I in musing meditation stand, 

Wai- woke these woodlands to the sound of woe, 

Sent back by echoes from the vales below? 

Did here the clarion's blast, in wild alarms. 

Call forth the sons of chivalry to arms? 

Say, did the car of carnage roll along 

These peaceful valleys, sacred now to song? 

Ah! yes, methinks I hear the cannon's roar. 

Reverberate down Brandy wine's dark shore; 

Dying in distance, while its thunder fills 

A hundred flowery fields and cloud-capt hills; 

Methinks I see, ev'n at this silent hour. 

Proud England's army clothed in pomp and power; 

Hark! to the piercing fife, the doubling drum! 

Ha! now they cross the stream — they come! they come! 

I see the glittering gun, the waving plume, 

And blood-red garment — 'tis a day of doom ! 

Behold the lofty Hessians ! like a flood 

Of giant monsters, now they come for blood; 

In Britain's ranks, bought up by British gold. 

They by Hesse Cassel's tyrant have been sold; 

They come to scatter death and misery, 

To butcher men determined to be free. 

Oh! Liberty, how lovely are thy charms. 

Thus to call forth embattling bands to arms ! 

T' avenge his country's wrongs, her rights to save, 

To win a glorious garland, or a grave; 

To rend the chains of cheerless slavery. 

To give to unborn millions liberty; 

To dash the sceptre from the despot's hand. 

Heroes have nobly bled, and patriots plann'd. 



436 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

All Nature sighs for freedom — from the cage 
The bird, though crush 'd by indolence and age, 
Pines for the green old woods and flowery grove, 
To pour, at morning light, its lay of love: 
The lion walks his dungeon, not his cave. 
And feels, with wounded pride, he is a slave; 
Strikes with disdain the iron bars, and sighs 
To roam oa Afric's desert, 'neath her skies; 
Or longs to lie beneath some shady tree, 
Stretching his noble limbs in liberty. 
Oh! Liberty, before thy sacred shrine, 
Nations have knelt to catch thy smile divine; 
From heroes' hearts, upon Columbia's shore. 
Hath reek'd full many a tide of gushing gore! 

Upon this hill did Freedom's Father stand, 
Design 'd the saviour of a sinking land; 
Battling with Britain's host for liberty — 
Approaching armies now I seem to see; 
Like pent up tides let loose, they rush in might, 
"With clashing steel, and waving banners bright; 
Like wheat before the farmer's scythe, they fall, 
And scenes are here which stoutest hearts appal: 
Methinks a freeman's dying groan I hear. 
And now a Britain's death shriek fills mine ear; 
The expiring Hessian turns his eye in shame. 
To Europe's shores, and sighs to think he came 
To fight a people, who no wrong had given. 
Whose cause was sanction 'd in the sight of Heaven; 
Methinks I see proud Freedom's band retire. 
Before the daring Britain's deadly fire; 
But dear the triumph and the trophies here. 
Which cost the hero's blood, the widow's tear; 
And taught old England that the chief who flies, 
Will, like Antaeus, from the earth arise. 
Renew 'd in vigor, nor shall England's ire, 
Strangle, like Hercules, fair Freedom's Sire; 
Her mourning mothers oft shall rue, in fine. 
The day they met on bloody Brandywine. 

Oh! War, what horrors follow in thy ti"ain. 
What scenes of grief, of dark despair and pain? 
Methinks I see the dying and the dead, 
Adown this hill, upon their gi-assy bed; 
I hear the cry of wounded men, in vain. 
Calling on wives and children, o'er the main; 
Calling on wives and children, they no more 
Shall see on life's now fast receding shore: 
I see the forms of those who died, that we 
Might live and long enjoy the liberty. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD.* 437 

For which they fought, for which they nobly fell, 

And to whose memory we the anthem swell. 

Alas! 'tis strange a brother's hand should seek, 

And in a brother's blood so oft should reek! 

Oh! War, along thy blood-stain 'd path we see 

But wrecks and ruins; pain and misery; 

To dignify one despot, thou hast hurl'd 

Thy bolts; in blood baptizing half a world; 

Thy crimson car, to fill a conqueror's store, 

Hath roll'd o'er ruin'd empires drench 'd in gore; 

Not so the glorious Washington appeal 'd 

Unto his sword, on Freedom's sacred field: 

Unlike Great Alexander, he unfurl 'd 

His banner not to conquer all the world; 

Unlike proud Cffiaar, he no power sought, 

But for the welfare of a world he fought; 

He drew his sword with reason, not with rage, 

That unborn millions, in a future eige, 

Might reap the harvest and, in luxury. 

Enjoy the fruits of blessed liberty: 

Unlike Napoleon, fill'd with dark deceit, 

The scourge of nations kneeling at his feet; 

He sought no triumph in ambition's hour. 

Nor prostituted principle to power; 

Not England's King, with all his gold or wrath, 

Could move his mighty soul from duty's path; 

He stood alone, the wonder of the world. 

And to the nations Freedom's flag unfurl 'd; 

He was by God a grand example sent 

To mourning millions, who their claims have rent. 

The time shall come when, at his name alone. 

The trembling tyrant, from his tottering throne. 

Shall fall, and feel no right divine to knaves 

Is giv'n, by grace of God, to govern slaves; 

And crumbling crowns be crush'd on Europe's fields, 

Touch 'd by the sacred sceptre Freedom wields: 

The name of him, who here once took his stand, 

The glorious liberator of our land — 

In future time, on Freedom's flag unfurl 'd. 

Shall be the mighty watchword of the world. 



438 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



t %mkB of l^t SSninhijmint 

Written at midnight, by moonlight, while seated on a high rock with a literary friend, 
who was watching tlie moon's rays as they danced on the surface of the tumbling 
waters, and dreaming of the wild legends of other days, 

'TwAS at the witching hour of night, 
When Heav'n and earth were laved in light; 
My friend and I together sate, 
High on a rock, to contemplate 
Sweet Nature's solitudes sublime, 
Tho' changed, yet still untouched by time, 
And watch the waters as they fell, 
Echoing thro' woodland, dale and dell. 

The moon was high in Heav'n, and beam'd 
Upon the waters, while she seem'd 
To contemplate her image there. 
So bright in beauty and so fair; 
And as she kiss'd each billow's breast. 
That rose and soon was rock'd to rest; 
It seemed as if all Heav'n did shine 
Beneath romantic Bi'andywine, 
That like a mirror lit with light. 
Reflected all the forms of night. 

Silence and soUtude abound. 
And not a sight, and not a sound 
Now greets mine eye or hstening ear, 
Save the loud waters tumbling near. 
And green old woods, whose monarchs stand 
The glory of Columbia's land. 
But in these solitudes I find 
A solace for a sorrowing mind. 
And here full many hour of late, 
I've sat to muse and meditate 
On Nature's charms, in ancient days, 
Ere Art display 'd her wondrous ways; 
And for the sake of glittering gold, 
Turned streams from beds they wash'd of old. 
Upon this rock I love to soar. 
In fancy, back to days of yore; 
When thro' these wild romantic woods. 
And o'er the Brandywine's brigiit floods, 
The Indian hunter's loud halloo 
Rung out, and glided his canoe: 
Methinks I see the wigwam near, 
Mplliink8 the wai-whoop now 1 hear: 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 439 

And horrid yell of victory, 

While up the distant stream, 1 see 

The dusky forms of warriors red 

With blood from many a foeman shed; 

Here on this spot, in ancient days, 

Methinks the council-fire's blaze 

Went up; while, here, beneath this shade, 

The savage war-dance was displayed; 

Perhaps upon this rock, at night. 

The Indian lover, by moonlight. 

Once wooed his dusky paramour. 

Before her father's wigwam door! 

But ah! where are they now? — no more 

The war-whoop rings along this shore; 

No more along this silver tide. 

The light canoe is seen to glide; 

No trace of wigwam here is seen. 

Upon these beauteous banks of green; 

The council-fire has long gone out, 

And hushed is now the war-dance shout; 

The Indian warrior's feet have fled, — 

They rest with all the mighty dead; 

A remnant of that powerful race, 

Alone in distant wilds we trace; 

Fading away, they soon will pass 

From earth, like shadows o'er a glass; 

Till the last Indian meets his doom. 

And sinks into the silent tomb. 

I mourn their fate, I mourn their fall, 

I weep their ruin, wrongs and all; 

But was it the design of God, 

The white man should usurp their sod ? 

Is this the heathen that is given. 

As an inheritance by Heaven ? 

Is this the desert land of woes. 

Destined to blossom as the rose? 

Alas ! the last lone Inditn here, 
Has dropp'd his unavailing tear; 
And turned his footsteps to the West, 
His hopeless heart with grief oppress 'd; 
Leaving the land he loved to trace, 
That holds the relics of his race; 
The tombs of his once gallant sires, 
That on these hills lit battle's fires. 
The forests, that around arose. 
Have fallen before the woodman's blows; 
And industry, with tireless hand. 
Has bid to bloom a happy land; 
Where plenty now forever showers 
Her golden grain, her fruits and flowers. 



440 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

And see where yonder city rears 

Her happy homes, and, smiling, cheers 

Her sons to honest toil, that won 

The wealth that now crowns Wilmington! 

Upon that stream, so fair to view, 

Where erst the Indian's bark canoe 

Was seen at morn in grace to glide, 

Like lightning o'er Christina's tide, 

The sails of commerce are unfurl'd, 

For wealth to wander o'er the world; 

Bending in beauty to the breeze. 

And bearing back, o'er sunny seas, 

The luxuries of every shore. 

Till hajDpy man can wish no more. 

Oh! land of plenty! — teeming sod! 

How changed since here the Indian trod. 

And was it strange that he should stand. 

Battling for this all-lovely land? 

That he should bathe his hands in gore, 

The white man's blood, upon this shore? 

Rise, soldiers, from your gory graves ! 

Rise Revolutionary braves ! 

And say for what ye fought and fell, 

When England loosed her hounds of hell. 

The children of the forests here, 
Pass'd many a bright and blissful year; 
Amid these scenes, this stream beside. 
The hunter lived and loved and died; 
But ah! the march of mind roll'd on, 
Roll'd o'er him, and the Indian's gone; 
These lovely shades and scenes sublime. 
Are silent as the step of time; 
No trace is left, save o'er the ground, 
By curious eyes, their darts are found;* 
The sons of science sought his bower, 
Strong in their intellectual power; 
The savage fled m deep disgrace, 
And now a remnant of his race 
Alone in distant wilds we find, 
Sad victims to the might of mind. 

Is it then strange, in its control. 
Vengeance should fire the Indian 's soul ? 
Or is it strange revenge should fire 
His heart with hatred's hottest ire? 
Oh! no; when in that awful hour, 
Old England, in the pride of power, 

* A gentleman of this city shewed me more than a hundred darts which he picked 
up in a field. They are of difTerent sizes. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 441 

Dared to our shores to send her tea, 
The white men struck for hberty; 
Though not from his possessions driven, 
He for his rights appeal 'd to Heaven; 
The sword leap'd to his daring hand,— 
He fought and fell for freedom's land. 

And what remains of all that race. 
That once upon these shores we trace? 
Fading away— a mournful doom — 
Soon the last Indian in the tomb 
Will pillow his unhappy head, 
Slumb'ring with all the mighty dead. 
In future times, when long at rest. 
Upon some river of the West, 
An Athens or a Rome shall rise, 
The youth shall ask, with deep surprise, 
What manner of men they were, who trod, 
(Their charter giv'n alone by God,) 
The mighty masters in command. 
Of this now great and glorious land. 

Oh! Brandywine, how changed art thou, 
By Art's proud triumph and the plough ! 



luptifism. 



56 



Whene'er I view a man of sense, 

Peruse the Scriptures to deny 
The truths of blest Omnipotence, 

And call the Holy Book a lie; 
I call him fool, or heedless youth, 

Such noble doctrines to unroll, 
And not beheve the sacred truth. 

It must be dropsy of the soul. 

Whene'er I view or young or old, 

A man devoted to himself, 
And make a god of paltry gold, 

And boast his greatness in his pelf, 
I say that man's corrupt in heart, 

His principles cannot be whole. 
And he is sickly in that part. 

Where dwells the plethora of soul. 



OF LIBEETY-TOWN, MARYLAND, 

HO recently sent me, as a present, a money- 
^purse made of the skin of a mole; and a specta- 
|Cle case, both manufactured by his own hands. 
My venerable friend, no doubt, enjoyed more 
pleasure in making them, than during the battle 
of Tripoli, when the brave Decatur was battling 
with the Turks. The Doctor must have had his 
hands full, after the bloody taking of the ship 
Philadelphia. Accounts state that Decatur and 
his men, after boarding, fought hand to hand with 
the enemy, and that, at one time, the Commodore 
was down with a stalwart Turk, on the deck, 
who was in the act, with uplifted arm, of stabbing 
him to the heart, when one of his (Decatur's) 
men, a Frenchman, presented a pistol and shot 
the Turk through the uplifted arm, thus saving 
the life of the noble Commodore, who was, alas! destined, in the 
mysterious course of Providence, to fall by the hand of his own 
countryman. How strange, that he should have escaped so many 
imminent dangers, in battling with the enen>ies of his country, only 
to die by the hand of an American, his own countryman. If my 
friend. Dr. John W. Dorsey, would write out a short history offhe 
engagement at Tripoli, and re-taking of the ship Philadelphia, as 
he witnessed the bloody scene, it would be very interesting to many 
readers. He was with Decatur, and must remember the events. 

As it is my custom to muse on, and draw a moral from, every 
thing I see, I have taken the liberty to do so in regard to the mole- 
skin purse and spectacle case, which my friend has been so kind as 
to send me. There are many little things in every day life, which 
may serve as subjects of the deepest reflection, both morally and 
philosophically. The most profound train of moral reflections 
into which I have been led for a long time, sprung, some time 
ago, from observing a dog with a muzzle on his mouth. I saw 




WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 443 

him, on the street, looking with anxious eye at a piece of meat, 
which had been thrown from the market. — I saw him approach it, 
and with a most affectionate smile, smell the delicious aroma that 
proceeded from it. — I saw him open his mouth to receive the 
tempting morceau, and watched him as the consciousness flashed 
upon his mind that he was muzzled. Oh! my friend, you cannot 
imagine my feelings, when I witnessed the expression of despair, 
that spread over that poor dog's countenance! I burst into tears, 
and resolved that my next story should be called the Muzzled 
Dog. — You will wonder my dear Doctor, why I wept — I will tell 
you. The scene reminded me strongly of many events among 
men, and particularly as it regarded the sad fate of a young fe- 
male friend. 

Dear Doctor, when I gaze upon this purse, 
It speaks of money and its mighty curse; 
And of its blessing, too, for both, 1 ween, 
Have from it sprung, as you and I have seen. 
Ah! what for money will not man forego? 
For it he dares e'en danger, death and woe; 
For it he wanders dreary waste or wave, 
And but to win it, wooes an early grave: 
Behold him toiling many a weary day, 
To die and leave his wealth to waste away; 
Or to be squander 'd by a worthless son, 
Whose worthlessness from wealth alone begun ! 
Behold th' assassin, at the midnight hour, 
Seeking the miser's secret source of power! 
For gold he grasps the glittering dagger — gold 
Banishes fear, and makes the coward bold; 
For gold he dips his hands in human gore. 
For that he spurns all danger, death, yea, more, 
The red arm of the wrath of God, and all 
That in a future world may him befall. 

Dear Doctor, when upon this purse I gaze. 
It speaks of deeds full worthy of all praise; 
It tells of pining poverty and woe. 
Relieved by gold, which generous hands bestow; 
Of many a heart made happy by its power. 
Hearts that were breaking in despair's dark hour; 
It tells of many an orphan snatch 'd from crime, 
And want; yea, more — of many a deed sublime. 
Which shed a glory on the human heart. 
And did a grandeur to the soul impart; 
Oh! Money, source of every good and evil, 
Thou art indeed an angel and a devil; 
We see thee, like an angel, doing good, 
And, like a devil, stain'd with human blood; 



444 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

One day we see thee, with a joy, impart 
Relief to sorrow's suff'ring, breaking heart; 
The next behold thee with a reeking blade, 
Plunged in the heart of harmless man or maid. 

This purse reminds me of the groveling mole 
Digging in earth, as men for money stroll; 
And, ah! how blind that money too makes man! 
BHnd as the mole, whose skin mine eyes now scan; 
Oh! not more blind the mole, nor slick his skin, 
Than money now makes man, in every sin; 
Mark him in trade, in argument, a he; 
Ay, catch him in the latter, and you'll sigh. 
To see how slick and slippery he'll grow. 
Not ev'n the eel more somersets can throw. 

But, Doctor, you, like many in our day. 
Have made one grand mistake, as Frenchmen say: 
You've sent the purse without the money; I 
Account for that, however, by and by; 
As poets have no money, you thought, hence, 
The purse was all in all, without the pence. 
But there's another grand mistake — I'll pin it, 
You've sent a case with no spectacles in it; 
Alas! without the eyes to see, I must 
Remain as blind as any mole in dust; 
Ah! could we give but eyes to every friend. 
How soon would manners, mind, and morals mend! 
Could we but give them eyes to see themselves, 
How many present angels would be elves! 
And were those eyes but magnifying glasses. 
How many great men would sink into asses ! 
Could we but give men eyes to see their actions, 
Virtues would change to vices, feuds and factions; 
And could we place a window in men's hearts, 
The Devil's workshop, where are taught all arts; 
What wondrous things should we not there behold! 
" 'Tis false," cries one, "man woi'ships God, I'm told — " 
'Tis true my friend, but then that god is gold; 
His day-book is his Bible, and his meiin, 
His mightiest hope and faith, is earthly gain. 
That this is true, dear Doctor, you and I 
Can both, from long experience, testify; 
The saddest case and spectacles I've seen. 
Are men who love their god of gold, I ween. 

Dear Doctor, for these presents I return 
My heart, in which the warmest friendships burn; 
Never before did it love gold, but now 
It has grown purse-provd, as you will allow; 
And of all spectacles that you may trace. 
You'll find none higher valued than my case; 
I'll keep the purse in mem'ry of the rich, 
Invaluable, and cherished friendship, which 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 445 

I've known from thee; and hard my case must be, 

When I shall cease to prize the case from thee. 

I wish you all the pleasure life can give, 

"With length of days — in short, that you may hve 

Till children, born in your old age, shall be 

Fourscore and ten — may wealth and luxury, 

A full purse and a loaded board, be thine, 

With every good thing, human and divine; 

May every joy, to mortals known, by you 

Be long enjoyed— farewell, my friend.— Adieu! 



TintB. 



3 

WRITTEN Ox\ A TOMBSTONE OVEli A YOUNG LADY. 

Beneath this tomb in silent sleep. 

The years of youth devoted dwell. 
Pale pity's eyes here widow 'd weep, 

And anxious hearts of sorrow swell. 

The tearful Muse unknown must mourn, 

A fairer fiow'r is seldom seen. 
Than this enclosed in beauty's bourne, 

Bit by the blast of cold winds keen. 

Fair faded flow'r of richness rare, 
Thy youthful years of fame are flown; 

Yet you shall 'scape and flourish fair. 

Where frosts ne'er come and winters are unknown. 

The stings of strife, the pangs of pain 

No more shall mantle in thy mind; 
The boiling blood, the burning brain. 

Have left all human hopes behind. 

To heav'n's high house not made by man, 

Thy soul serenely wing'd its way. 
The glorious gifts of God to scan. 

And angels lit thy darksome day. 

Sleep, sweet Selinda sleep secure. 
We watch and weep thee o'er thy tomb, 

Sleep still sweet one, soon sorrow .sure 
Shall shine in joy and beauty bloom. 



She was as fair as yonder silver moon, 
That walks the sky in cloudless majesty, 
Without a spot to stain her. 

STATED in my address to my friend, Dr. Dor- 
[sey, that while walking the street with a friend, I 
observed a muzzled dog eying a bone, which 
he approached and endeavored in vain to taste. 
|I stated also, that, in contemplating the scene, I 
'could not refrain from bursting into tears. Now, 
I presume that the reader understood me in a 
ludicrous sense, and laughed at the idea, under 
the supposition that it was my intention to make 
him laugh. Alas! I must confess that it was 
laughable, I mean the mere idea of my bursting 
into tears, at seeing a muzzled dog eying and 
longing for a bone, which he could not enjoy ; 
but the scene reminded me strongly of an un- 
happy page in the history of human life — of 
events which can never be erased from memory, 
of the fate of one of the loveliest creatures on whom God, in his 
infinite goodness, ever bestowed the charms of beauty. Listen 
gentle reader, to a tale of retrospection; for it is an " ower true 
tale," — it is a plain, unvarnished tale; but it is one of tenderness 
and tears.. The subject of it now sleeps in the silent grave, which 
was covered with the wild flowers of summer the last time I trod 
the hallowed precincts of the home of my heart, that word so dear 
to the heart of every Delawarian. 

I love every thing that belongs to Delaware. When I wander 
away for years, memory continually dwells upon the happy homes 
and faces of Delaware, and in my dreams I invariably fancy that 
I am musing in the woodlands; roaming the flowery fields or 
wandering on the banks of the Brandy wine, or some other roman- 
tic stream of my own dear little Delaware. Even in my dreams 




WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 447 

do I revisit the land of my birth, and my spirit mingles with the 
bright-eyed beauties of Delaware, while I drink poetic inspiration 
from their love-mantled lips. Yes, when long exiled from my 
native State, I have loved even a dog, though a stranger to me, 
when I discovered he was from Delaware. This feeling, I believe, 
is implanted in the heart of every Delawarian. It is not peculiar 
to me, for in all my wanderings I have never heard a Delawarian 
breathe a word derogatory to his native State. Proud of it, they 
have clung to each other, cherished each other, and defended each 
other. I mention this because the subject of this story was a De- 
lawarian; and, as I said before, a lovelier piece of mortality never 
bloomed or was blasted. But to the story. 

Emily, for I shall call her by no other name, was an orpha:n girl, 
both of her parents having been swept off during the prevalence 
of the typhus fever, in a southern section of Delaware. Her 
father had been considered very wealthy, for he was engaged in 
very extensive business, and of course Emily was left an heiress. 
She was sent to Wilmington to be educated, or rather to finish her 
education; for she was almost at that charming, and to me, most 
fascinating age, when young ladies in this State enter society. 

Poor Emily ! I knew her well from her cradle to her coffin ; from 
her birth to her burial; and truly can I say, that she possessed the 
greatest precocity of genius that I ever observed in any child of 
her sex, and what is not always the case, that precocious genius 
followed her to womanhood. She was a woman, as well as a 
child, of talent; but like all persons of genius; of superior mind; 
she was erratic, eccentric, strange and peculiar in manner. She 
had her own notions of every thing; and, like all persons of su- 
perior mind, she did not possess that very useful requisite, com- 
mon sense, that sense which teaches us the value of the ordi- 
nary things of life, and how to use those things to the best 
advantage. 

Emily lived in a world of her own — a world of imagination, for 
she was devoted to the "tuneful Nine." Common sense had 
never taught her how to conduct herself in this lower world. She 
had no judgment of mankind and every day concerns — she knew 
not the hollow-heartedness of the world, and the deceitfulness of 
man. With all the wealth and glory of her intellect, she had 
never learned that useful lesson, that man, when unrestrained by 
the stern law of virtue, is, or may be, a villain. She knew him 
only by his ostentatious exterior, without being aware how despe- 
rately deceitful he is. 



448 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

At the close of Emily's first term at school, she left Wilmington, 
in the mail-stage, to return home, in company with a young lad, 
who had been sent to accompany her. There were no other pas- 
sengers, save a young man, who sat silent and absorbed, with an 
occasional glance at Emily, whose transcendent beauty was an 
object as far removed from him, as was the bone from the dog. 
Not more did the dog long to enjoy the luxury of the bone, than 
did he, whose name was Henry Freeland, to become acquainted 
with the beautiful being before him. But, ah ! he was muzzled. 
He revolved in his mind every possible expedient by which he 
could scrape an acquaintance, but all in vain. He dared not 
speak to her without some form of introduction, but how to obtain 
that introduction he could not imagine. He endeavored to draw 
the young lad into conversation, but there again he was muzzled — 
the dog longing for the bone. 

Again and again the stage stopped, but no opportunity occurred 
by which Henry could obtain an introduction to Emily. Still 
more anxiously did he gaze upon her beauty, every hour, for he 
saw the marks of intellectual superiority engraven on every line- 
ament of her lovely face. 

At length he made a desperate resolve to speak to her, remem- 
bering the old saying, that "a faint heart never won a fair lady." 
He turned upon his seat, rubbed his hands, looked out of the stage 
window, and then looked in again at the lady; but still the words 
stuck in his throat, but all to no purpose; his lips refused to utter 
them. 

It was not till the stage arrived at Smyrna, that I entered the 
vehicle, and recognized the beautiful, the accomplished Emily. I 
observed something peculiar in the manner of the young man in 
the stage, for no sooner did he discover that I was familiar with 
Emily, than he seemed perfectly restless, and I saw that he longed 
for my acquaintance. The truth was, he was a perfect picture of 
the dog longing for the bone. 

More than an hour elapsed, ere Henry managed to scrape an 
acquaintance with me, and through me, with Emily. She treated 
him with politeness, but with reserve, as she did not yet know who 
or what he was, save only his name. We both discovered that he 
was a man of education, and that his manners were refined, with 
a certain peculiarity, a je ne scuis quoi, as the French call it, 
which in our language cannot be described, but which is calcu- 
lated to charm and enchain the heart of woman. There are few 
men who possess, in an eminent degree, the peculiarity 1 speak 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 449 

of; but I have invariably observed that he who is the happy pos- 
sessor of that peculiar manner, carries with him, wherever he 
goes, a key to the female heart. No difference how aristocratic ; 
no difference how elevated the lady may be in society; no differ- 
ence how wealthy, how talented, how diffident or reserved; if he 
is ever permitted to enter the sanctuary of her society; if he is 
ever permitted to bow before her beauty, and breathe into her ear 
the hallowed language of love, she will yield up her heart without 
a struggle, and sigh upon his bosom the vow of undying affection. 

There is another class of men, who have no power over the 
heart of woman. They may have been the favorites of nature in 
regard to her gifts both of beauty and talents; they may possess 
every external accomplishment, but not having the peculiar art or 
manner spoken of, they are powerless in the dominions of love ; 
they cannot win the intoxicating smiles of woman. They may, 
with the wand of genius, become the grand high-priests of 
Nature ; they may, on the sublime wings of thought, traverse the 
regions of space; measure worlds; and survey suns and systems; 
but they cannot measure, fathom, or fascinate that mighty and 
mysterious little world which beats in the bosom of woman; and 
yet, how strange! that little world rules and regulates the world at 
large that worships it. Sir Isaac Newton was an example of what 
I mean ; though he was, perhaps, the greatest philosopher England 
ever produced^ he was utterly powerless in the presence of woman. 

But to resume. Henry used all his powers to win from Emily 
that freedom of manner which he wished, and having that pecu- 
liar power, of which I spoke, in an eminent degree, every glance 
of his full, dark melting eye spoke volumes to the heart of Emily, 
and before we arrived at the place of our destination, that heart 
was almost his, without her being aware of the fact. Often, during 
our ride, did I detect the eyes of Henry in deep conversation with 
those of Emily. Though not a word was spoken; though not a 
whisper stole upon the solitude of the evening, when the fiery 
chariot of the sun had descended behind the far off woodlands of 
western Delaware, and the beautiful moon came forth like a bride 
in her beauty; yet those eyes conversed in a language as intelli- 
gible to the heart, as any that ever fell in thunder on the ear. 

Alas! how well did I read the gradually growing interest which 
was springing up in the heart of poor Emily ! Plainer and 
plainer could I read the fact, that she had met a man whose fas- 
cinating tongue and winning manners were destined to sway her 
soul for good or for evil. Oh! could we but look through the 
57 



450 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

telescope of time, and see the developments of the destiny that 
awaits us, how often would we start in terror ? Could Emily have 
looked into the future, she would have fled from the bewitching 
influence of that man, as the bewildered bird flies when released 
from the fascinating eye of the serpent. How often, since that 
hour, have I wandered to the church-yard where she slumbers ; 
and, while bending over her tomb and musing upon the happy days 
gone by, when I beheld her in the bloom of her beauty, have I 
shed the tears of unfeigned sorrow and regret that one so lovely, — 
that one constituted by nature to be happy, — that one who pos- 
sessed all the requisites to render others happy, should have been 
doomed to taste the bitter cup; aye, that bitterest of all cups, the 
cup of unhappy wedded life. 

But I must not anticipate, for I am writing no fiction; I am 
recording the real history of one of the most charming, and at the 
same time one of the most unhappy of her sex. Henry Freeland 
was at heart a heartless man. Money was the god of his idolatry, 
and truly was his day-book his Bible. He admired a beautiful 
lady, as he admired a splendid piece of painting or sculpture by 
one of the old masters. He had just returned from Italy, whither 
he had been to lounge and enjoy himself in the galleries of art. 
He worshiped a lady, too, who possessed superior mind ; but in 
that worship there was none of that deep devoted feeling which 
springs from the heart, and which, in common parlance, we call 
love. He bowed down before Emily the knee of adoration; but 
it was of that heartless character which is felt by the Hindoo, 
when he bends before his senseless image. 

The truth was, Emily's money was the bone for which Henry 
longed ; for he was scattering the last remnant of the estate which 
his father, formerly a merchant of New York, had left him. He 
had spent three thousand dollars in taking the tour of Europe ; 
five thousand in fashionable dissipation, and had been living ex- 
tremely fast on the remaining two, of the ten thousand he had in- 
herited. Of course, he could not but be near the last sixpence, 
and looked with an eager eye on the bank stock, as well as the 
beauty of Emily. Poor girl, her heart was full of gentleness and 
love, and, by his winning ways, had been taught, ere six months 
of acquaintanceship expired, to love him with all her heart — yea, 
with all that singleness of devotion which truly belongs to the 
pure soul of holy, heavenly, virtuous woman. 

It has ever seemed to me, without subscribing to the doctrine 
of predestination, that some persons are destined to an unhappy 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 451. 

lot. Though a beautiful and brilliant prospect may be before them, 
and tlie sun may shine upon them, and their paths may be adorned 
with flowers, yet it is all deceitful ; the dark storm of adversity is 
just ready to burst upon and overwhelm them in one long night of 
despair. 

So it was with Emily. Every thing was bright before her, and 
she looked forward to long years of happiness. She had met and 
loved a handsome, and, what she prized more, a very talented man, 
whom she expected to marry; for he was a suitor for her hand; 
and, knowing that her own fortune was sufficient, she asked and 
wished no more to make her happy. The prospect, indeed, was 
a bright one. But, alas! she knew not the grovelling motive of 
Henry — she knew not the story of the muzzled dog and the bone; 
but she was destined to know them. 

It is a fact, that woman more generally appreciates the sterling, 
inherent qualities of man, than man does those of woman. She 
more frequently loves a man for his sterling, inherent qualities, 
than man does woman ; for he is more attracted by extraneous 
qualities. Beauty, money, aristocratic birth, and so forth, are the 
means to catch him. 

Emily's regard for Henry was founded mostly on his superior 
mind. His manners, as I said before, were particularly captivat- 
ing. His conversational powers were great, and for hours they 
would sit in close debate on the deep abstractions of science. 
Indeed I may say with truth, that Henry was the most fluent and 
brilliant in conversation of any young man I ever met with, with 
the single exception of James Clayton, brother of John M. Clay- 
ton, of Delaware. Henry was not artificial ; he did not skim the 
surface of things ; but " drank deep of the Pierian spring." 

But I must hasten on the conclusion of this tragic and true story. 
Henry had wooed and won the fair Emily. His basilisk eye was 
on the bone before him ; he was longing to finger the bank stock 
and cash, and had asked the hand of Emily. She pondered on 
the important matter long, and appealed to her bosom friend, 

Sarah A , who advised her not to be in haste, but to study the 

character, the disposition of Henry, before she gave herself to a 
comparative stranger. She had, with the single-heartedness of 
woman, devoid of interested money-loving selfishness, never en- 
quired into the finances of Henry; for she cared not whether he 
possessed a penny or not; but for her, as well as his happiness, 
she was anxious, and told him that it was her romantic notion to 
delay her answer until the expiration of three months. 



452 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

This to Henry was severe; for he was thereby muzzled, and 
knew that he would cast many an anxious eye on the bone, ere 
that period should elapse. But there was no alternative; for 
Emily was resolute, by the advice of Sarah, a young lady whom 
her father had rescued from a burning house when both father and 
mother perished, leaving her an orphan alone in the world. Emily 
loved her as dearly as if she had been her sister, and Sarah, being 
older than herself, acted as a female Mentor. Her advice was 
always sound and judicious, and Emily followed or practised it, 
with that confidence a child feels in the advice of a parent. They 
were both orphans, alone in the world, and they leaned upon and 
loved each other, with a devotion that can never be known to 
those who are placed in different circumstances, and are sur- 
rounded by numerous relatives. Sarah felt that she owed a debt 
of gratitude; for she had not only been reared in orphanage on 
the bounty of Emily's father, but she was indebted for subsistence 
to the bounty of the daughter. She was a small girl, when her 
father's house was burnt; but she remembered the terrific scene, 
and it had given a melancholy cast to her countenance, and a 
gravity to her manner, which impressed every one who approach- 
ed her. 

The three months, which muzzled Henry and kept him from 
the bone which he so much desired, were slowly rolling away. 
Henry's funds were getting in the wane. If he should miss the 
bone, he saw no alternative but to apply for a clerkship in a store, 
or the place of a teacher in the Academy. 

Henry felt, in his heart, that if Emily had been a poor girl, or 
that if she had been but moderately favored with fortune, he would 
never have been a suitor for her hand. He knew that she was 
beautiful; that she was lovely; that she was amiable, gentle, and 
affectionate, beyond measure ; but he also felt, at the same time, 
that he was heartless and sordid. Like the muzzled dog, he longed 
for the meat on the bone, without having any regard for the bone 
itselfb He knew that he was a man of talent, and he was proud 
to show his power in winning the affection of lovely woman; but 
it was a mean, a heartless triumph. He knew not that noble love, 
which springs from sympathy, from communion of soul — that love 
which Shakspeare makes Othello so beautifully allude to, as the 
offspring of the communion of two hearts — 

"She loved me for the dangers I had passed. 
And I loved her that she did pily them." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 453 

Henry, like many other gay Lotharios, knew nothing of that 
high and holy love which so elevates man above the brute, and 
allies him to his Maker — no, his was only the ambition of love. 
He knew nothing of the anguish of a heart whose affections have 
been trampled upon. The idea of a broken heart, and blighted 
love, was something he could not realize. 

Often did Emily consult her friend on the subject of the proposed 
union. Sarah was alone solicitous for the happiness of her friend 
and benefactor; she waived every selfish consideration, and gave 
her such advice as she would have dictated to herself under similar 
circumstances. 

The three months had nearly elapsed, and Henry, having 
(designedly) conducted himself in a very upright and amiable 
manner, his society having been courted by the most refined and 
respectable people in the town, Sarah advised Emily to give her 
consent in marriage, as she, as well as all the citizens, desired to 
see her happily married. 

In small towns the people all know one another, and are joined 
together by one common tie of affection. They are like one 
family; if one is happy, or in distress, all feel it, more or less, in 
sympathy. Every one, large and small, rich and poor, loved Emily, 
and ardently desired her happiness. 

But I must hasten on. Emily and Henry were married with 
great pomp, during the absence of her guardian, whom she 
dreaded ; for she had had a proposal of marriage from him, though 
he was old enough to be her father. Henry was delighted, for he 
imagined that the bone was almost within his reach. Emily was 
in a constant state of ecstasy. The silvery sound of her voice 
and her merry laugh could be heard through the halls of her happy 
home, from morning till night; but a change was soon to come. 

Mr. Melville, the guardian of Emily, returned in a few weeks 
from a travel to the north, and, at the moment when Henry was 
eager to clutch the golden bone, a damper was thrown upon him, 
by the astounding intelligence that he could never touch a penny 
of Emily's fortune. Her father was a very eccentric man, and left 
it in such a way, that if she ever married, she was to loose a great 
portion, and to have the interest only of the other. 

The tone of Henry instantly changed, when he found that the 
fortune had dwindled to a bare support; and Emily was thunder- 
struck, though she did not believe for a moment the affection of 
Henry could be so easily riven from her. Alas! she knew not the 
deceitfulness of man, particularly when the god he worships is 



454 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARU. 

made of gold. A coolness was instantly observable, in his manners, 
and she, unluckily, overheard him say, that he "had married a 
beggar at last." Restraining her feelings, she fled to her room, 
and, throwing herself on a bed, she burst into tears, and wept long 
and bitterly. Like Calypso, when she lost Ulysses, she could not 
be consoled, but gave herself up to the silent, but most extravagant 
expressions of despair. Still she hoped, after the first burst of 
grief was over, that he would change; nor could she believe that 
a life of wretchedness was before her. 

The human muzzled dog now showed his madness, by diving 
into the very depths of dissipation, to which he had been accus- 
tomed, and the community was surprised; for he had even joined 
the church, while addressing Emily. 

Oh! ye fair damsels of Delaware, ye dark-eyed beauties, beware 
of the dissipated man. There is a hell in the bowl, for all those 
who taste it, and no marriage can be happy where its influence is 
known. 

Henry grew worse daily, and seemed to vend his spite at poor 
Emily alone, because he had been disappointed in obtaining the 
fortune for which he had longed. No more wretched was Emily 
than the faithful and grateful Sarah. Her eyes were ever red with 
weeping. The treatment Emily received grew worse and worse, 
until it became most cruel. But still, for a long time, she bore it 
without complaining, with more than woman's fortitude; till at 
length, by one act, he reached her very heart, and inflicted the 
severest wound that woman is ever called on to bear. A wife can 
bear all but that. When she beholds her husband rudely trampling 
on her affections, she yields herself to despair; for it is beyond 
her endurance to behold another, and an unworthy one, occupying 
the throne in her husband's heart, from which she has been rudely 
driven into exile. 

Suddenly he seemed somewhat changed, though still a brute. 
So great was the contrast that Emily was comparatively happy; 
her pale cheek seemed to revive, but the calm was deceitful; her 
sorrows were just beginning, and were destined to be blended 
with misfortune. 

Emily and Sarah had retired to the closet to rejoice over the 
change, and the prospect of happier days. The closet was full of 
rubbish, among which was an old rusty pistol, which had long 
been observed lying in one corner, and which had often been 
kicked from side to side. So exhilarated was Emily, at the pros- 
pect of the return of her husband's love, that she picked up the 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 455 

old pistol and presented it at Sarah, saying, at the same time, with 
a smile — "Take care, my dear, or T shall shoot you." 

"Shoot away," returned the affectionate Sarah, "for I would be 
willing to be shot to see you happy, and — " 

Ere the sentence was finished, the pistol exploded, and poor 
Sarah fell dead at the feet of her friend. Scarcely did Sarah fall, 
ere a wild scream broke from the lips of Emily, and she swooned. 
No one came. 

When she recovered, she rushed below in a state bordering on 
mental derangement. Henry was in a profound sleep on the sofa, 
and, being awakened by her cries, commenced abusing her, as 
was his custom. It was soon discovered what had happened, and 
it was piteous to hear the lamentations of the unhappy Emily. 
The pistol, it was supposed, had been loaded for years, and, though 
often handled and thrown about, had never exploded until that 
unfortunate moment. 

Henry now seemed or feigned to look upon her with horror; 
and that night she was seized with fever on the brain, and, ere 
the sun went down on the morrow, her once bright and beautiful 
eyes were closed for ever in death. There together lay the two 
friends, and together they were conveyed to the same grave. 
When standing beside the last resting place of the once lovely 
Emily, and, hearing the earth falling upon her coffin, and the 
words pronounced by the minister, " dust to dust," my tears flowed 
freely; for I had passed many a happy hour in the society of Emily, 
in the bright days of her existence, ere the blightening influence 
of sorrow fell upon her amiable and generous heart. I had known 
her from childhood, in the southern part of Delaware, and I knew 
her while at the Female Institute of this city. A lovelier creature 
never breathed, or bloomed, or was blasted. And now t never 
visit my mother without lingering, in the morning and evening 
hours, around the grave of the unfortunate Emily. The last time 
I visited her grave, I found that a very sweet, pretty little girl, a 
relative of the unfortunate beauty, had planted a number of vines 
and flower bushes in the immediate vicinity of the grave. At the 
first glance, my eye rested on a twin rose-bud. It reminded me 
so strongly of the two lovely creatures that slept below, that I 
could not refrain from tears; for often had I seen them, hand in 
hand, in childhood or girlhood, going to school together. Two 
full-blown roses, blighted by a storm, would have been a fit emblem 
of their after destiny. I have always loved that little girl for that 
touching mark of her tenderness; for the love of flowers, at any 



456 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 

time, is an evidence of refinement and feeling: but thus to grace 
the grave of one beloved, is an evidence, not only of refined 
feeling, but that the sympathizing one has a heart worth far more 
than all the "gold and diamonds of the farthest India." I admire 
talents; I reverence superior mind, because it is the gift of God; 
but of all things on this earth, I love most a generous, affectionate, 
noble heart that knows not the meaning of the word selfishness. 
Such a heart once beat in the bosom of the poor, unfortunate 
Emily; and such a heart beats now in the bosom of the little girl 
who planted the flowers around the grave of her ill-fated relative. 
That little girl is now receiving her education in the most distin- 
guished school of this city. I frequently meet her on the street, 
and always lift my hat in honor to her, on account of the evidence 
she has shown of being the possessor of a lieart beyond all price. 
She is no longer a little girl, but has exchanged her girlhood for 
the fascinating form and features of a young lady. And were I, 
at any moment, to show her this story, or recall to her mind the 
melancholy fate of her beautiful but unhappy kinswoman, her tears 
would flow freely. 

And now, ye lovely ladies of Delaware, let me warn you of those 
muzzled human dogs, who are ever gazing, with a longing eye, 
on the bone of your bank stock and your gold. Keep them 
muzzled, and let them long for the bone; for so sure as Ihey pick 
it, farewell to your happiness. I have now related a melancholy 
story of a beautiful creature; and should you, in future, see a 
muzzled dog on the street, I am sure you will think of the ill-fated 
Emily, and the muzzled two-legged dog, who was the cause of 
sending her, in all her bloom and beauty, to an untimely tomb. 



When Eve from Eden's bliss was torn, 

And by the sword was driven; 
Adam soon followed, nor did he mourn, 

For where she was, was Heaven: 
Had the dread angel torn apart 

This far too guilty pair; 
Then would have sigh'd his mighty heart, 

And broke in dark despair. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 457 



tlms m \^t Mm\^ d Era. Ino €alk\\, 

Wife of Mr. Elihd Talley, of Brandywine, and daughter of the late William Twao- 
DBLL, Esq., who departed from this world of care on the 9th of March, 1848, in the 
69th year of her age. Reqdiescat im pack. Written at the request of Mra. Wm. T. 
Jeandell, the niece of the deceased. 

Of all the woes in life's mysterious race, 
That man, unhappy man, is doom'd to trace, 

From day to day; 
The keenest, the severest of them all, 
Is, one by one, to see our loved ones fall, 

And pass away. 

Ah! true it is, like flow'rs our friends are here, 
Like flow'rs, they bloom, and die, and disappear. 

Nor can we save: 
To-day we see them in the busy crowd. 
To-morrow in the coffin and the shroud. 

And gloomy grave. 

Death treads upon the footsteps of our years, 
Our smiles a moment changes into tears. 

But keenest grief 
It is to see our friends, long loved, depart. 
And feel that desolation of the heart. 

That loathes rehef. 

Ah! yes, it is a bitter thing to be 
Bereft of brother, sister, or to see 

A father fall; 
But oh! there is a pang which, but to know, 
Hath in it far more agonizing woe. 

Than one or all. 

It is to see a much loved mother die, 
And gaze upon her dim and dark'ning eye, 

That once did shine. 
Upon affection's soul, with beams as bright, 
As blissful, beautiful, as is the light 

Of love divine. 

To feel her dying grasp, her chilling kiss. 
That once had in it all of human bliss. 

Without relief; 
To hear her dying pray'r, and mark her breath, 
Struggling in the last agonies of death; 

Oh! this is grief! 

58 



458 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BAUD. 

Methinks I see the dying mother now, 

The cold, dark damp of death is on her brow, 

And the grave yawns; 
Her friends have come to close her dying eye, 
And bid farewell till, in yon land on high, 

A new day dawns. 

Methinks I see her weeping children stand 
Beside her dying couch — her trembling hand 

Is bathed in tears; 
With agony the one, affliction's child, 
"Wrings his imploring hands, with accents wild, 

Bewailing fears. 

Ah! well may he in sorrow weep, and tell 
Of his keen sufferings in that last farewell 

To one so dear; 
For who in his eiffliction now will prove, 
Like her, a mother's holy, heavenly love. 

And truth sincere? 

Well may her husband, children, kindred mourn 
Her passage to that sad and silent bourne. 

From whence no more 
She shall return; for they, alas! will feel 
The loss of her deep heart, which could reveal 

Aifection's store. 

Weep then, weep, ye friends, for your own loss, 
But not for her — beneath the sacred Cross, 

She shall arise. 
On angels' wings, to that sublime abode, 
Where dwells in glory an all glorious God, 

Beyond the skies. 

Prepare, oh! yes, prepare in joy, to meet 
That happy mother, in her blest retreat; 

Where grief, nor tears, 
Nor sickness enter; but where all is joy. 
And peace, and holy love, without alloy, 

Thro' endless years. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 459 



OF WILMINGTON, DEL., FOR HER KINDNESS WHILE THE BARD WAS SICK. 

Can I forget thee.' Oh! no, no, 

While Hfe itself remains; 
Thou art a friend to man in woe, 

And worthy of my strains. 

I love thee, as a brother's heart 

Would love a sister dear; 
For in thy kindness is no art. 

While from thine eye a tear 

Is ever ready for the grief, 

Unhappy mortals feel; 
And well I know there is relief. 

In all thy words reveal. 

Oh! if all men, who err, could know 

Kinds words as soft as thine; 
How small indeed would be their woe, 

As thou can'st witness mine! 

I had a sister like to thee. 

In form and face and heart; 
But death hath taken her from me — 

That sister now thou art! 

And while upon the globe I stand. 

Thy kindness I will claim; 
For when I grasp thy generous hand, 

I think thou art the same. 

Oh! if our race were all like thee. 

So gen'rous and so just. 
How small the sum of misery. 

To those who kindly trust! 

'Tis sweet to think some human hearts 

Can feel for others' woes. 
And gently draw the poison 'd darts. 

That pieree the hearts of those 

Who have been wretched made, by trust 

Alas! that was betray 'd; 
And thou I know art truly just, 

In all that I have said. 



460 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

And now the feelings of my soul 

I have poured out to thee, 
For thou hast snatch 'd me from the bowl, 

And renovated me. 

Where'er thy future footsteps stray. 

May happiness be thine; 
And when thou leav'st this world, oh! may 

Thy blessings be divine. 



Ito a^breMEh ta mq qoung imh M~, 

To his amiable Mother, Sister and family, who, during my visit to Wilmington, have been 
to me all that a brother, mother and sister could be. 

Dear friends, oh! while this heart shall beat, 

I never can forget you; 
And while of love it is the seat, 

I'll bless the hour I met you; 
Yea, bless you with my latest breath, 
In the last lingering gasp of death. 

Home of my heart, sweet Delaware, 

1 love thee o'er all measure; 
That thou dost such kind spirits bear, 

Who are thy richest treasure; 
They are the jewels thou dost crave. 
Land of the beautiful and brave ! 

When persecution pierced my soul 

With solitary sadness. 
And drove me to the damning bowl. 

With fiendish grudge and gladness; 
Dear Delaware, beloved so long. 
Thy children saved the son of song. 

And shall I love them not? Oh! yes, 

I know no feeling other; 
My talented young friend I'll bless — 

His sister and his mother; 
For every child of Delaware, 
Shall this warm heart a fondness bear. 



C|e Jumntiirg-^irltr $ 



O/ 




"SUUM CUIQUE TRIBUITO." 

HE following story I had from a gentleman of 
|veracity, who assured me that it was "founded 
lon fact." It exemplifies the universal disposi- 
'tion of mankind to retaliate, be the cause of re- 
taliation what it may; a joke, an insult, or an 
injury. Self-defence and retaliation are com- 
mon to man, and not only to man, but (o all 
the tribes of the animal creation. The meanest 
insect if oppressed, will turn and sting the op- 
pressor; and hence it is evident that the spirit 
of retaliation is inherent in the animal being 
implanted in it by the Creator for a wise pur- 
pose, that iof self-defence. The pugnacious 
spirit of man I believe to be inherent, though 
bravery in a great degree is an acquired quality; 
for we find that the pugnacious spirit does not 
belong exclusively to man, but to all the animal creation. Were 
the disposition to fight peculiar to man, I should be led to think 
it originated in his own evil disposition; but we find that it is not 
peculiar, for dogs and chickens, like men, will fight unto death. 

But I did not commence with the view of writing a philosophic 
essay, neither was it my intention to attempt to prove that God 
made man for war; though I have been led into some reflections 
on the subject, by the word retaliation. My object is to relate the 
story of the humming-bird's nest- 
Some time since, there arrived from Ireland a man by the name 
of Paddy Shane, a beautiful bit of a boy, to use his own expres- 
sion, and much of a wag into the bargain. Paddy had resided in 
a neighboring city a few months, and considered himself wise 
enough in a knowledge of the affairs of this country to enlighten 
all foreigners just arriving; and that he was well enough acquaint- 




462 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

ed with the why and wherefore of every thing, to play a waggish 
prank occasionally on a "raw 'un;" and not only on the raw ones 
of swate ould Ireland, but on any unlucky wight from any other 
nation! Paddy was notorious for having seen great things. He 
was surprised at nothing that was shown him. He had seen far 
greater things in the ould counthry, and even the childre across 
the wather would'nt be astonished at the wonders in Ameriky. 
On being shown some famous huckleberries, he exclaimed, 
"Och! noo, and by my sowl, did ye niver sa the plums growin 
in the bogs of ould Ireland on the big trees, sure! Ton my sowl, 
an ye niver did sa the like iv 'em." 

"And what were they like, Paddy?" 

"Like, yer honor? Well noo, an I have a sowl to be saved, 
they were like niver a thing, barrin the biggest plums ye iver did 
sa at all, at all." 

"But, Paddy, there are no such plums as these in Europe." 

"No sich plums in the ould counthry, yer honor? An ye may 
well say that same; but hevn't I sane them sure, an hevn't I 
pulled thim meself aff the vines the day?" 

" Pulled them to-day off the vines in Ireland ! how is that Paddy ? 
You said, too, that they grew on large trees. 

"Och! botherashun to me mimory noo, an sure warn't it me- 
self that wur jist fancyin myself in swate ould Ireland the day, an 
its thrue, yer honor, meself was in Ameriky." 

Upon the conclusion of this wise conclusion, Paddy Shane gave 
one of his inimitable horse-laughs; which, at a moderate compu- 
tation, might be heard a mile, and to give vent to which, he was 
under the necessity of opening his " swate little jewel of a mouth," 
as he called it, from ear to ear. That laugh, which more resem- 
bled a sudden clap of thunder than a sound proceeding from 
human lungs, had caused more than one horse to break his bridle. 

"Och! the dear leetle creatures!" exclaimed Paddy Shane one 
day when he saw, for the first time in his life, a parcel of bed-bugs 
in the cracks and crevices of a bedstead. "An its meself sure 
that niver saw silk-worms cooltivated afther this beautiful way at 
all, at all." 

"This is a droll way of cultivating silk-worms, Paddy." 

"And its yer honor may well say that same, dogs a bit, noo, in 
the ould counthry, but they hive 'em until the young varmints 
spin the sewin silk all ready for the needle sure." 
"And do the worms twist the silk in your country?" 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 463 

"Twist it, yer honor? An yer honor may well say that noo. 
And ye go till untwist it, it 'ill twist tighter and tighter, until dogs 
a bit, yer honor, it'll niver ontwist at all, at all." 

Paddy Shane brought with him, from the "ould counthry, a nate 
leetle bit o' money till furnish the manes o' making a dacent livin 
in Ameriky." Paddy was not like the most of the British no- 
bility, who boast of their birth and found their greatness on the 
bones of their buried ancestors ; neither was he like an Irish po- 
tato — for the best part of him was not under ground. He sprung 
from poor, but respectable parentage, and possessed that birth- 
right of a true Irishman, an open, honest heart, free from all 
meanness and selfishness; and a liberal, generous soul, that was 
ever ready to enjoy a joke, shed a tear of sympathy over another's 
sorrow, and to share the last hard-earned shilling with a fellow 
creature in distress. I like a whole souled son of the Emerald 
isle; for the most accomplished, the most perfect gentleman with 
whom I ever conversed, if I may be allowed to use the superlative, 
most perfect — was an Irishman. And I like the warm souled son 
of ould Scotia, who carries his heart in his hand; and the hot- 
headed, impetuous Frenchman, with all his excess of etiquette, 
and refinement of manners; for beneath all the flourish of fancy 
and the furbelows of fashion, beats a heart alive to the finer feel- 
ings of human nature, the warm impulses of affection, and the 
noble, self-sacrificing spirit of generosity. But no more of na- 
tionality, for our country has truly become the nursery of nations. 

I merely desire to give the reader a bird's-eye view of the cha- 
racter of Paddy Shane, and I have said no little in his favor when 
I assert, that his day-book was not his Bible, and gold was not his 
god. He was a good churchman, nevertheless; for in the lan- 
guage of Yankeedom, "he did those things he had'nt ought to 
do, and left undone those things he ought to have done." Though 
Paddy Shane never indulged in the nsmX furor ; though he never 
strained at a gate and swallowed a saw-mill, yet he was orthodox 
in his religion. He loved a joke, when it was even at his own ex- 
pense; but, like most people, he loved it much better when it was 
at the expense of another. But, unlike most people, he could 
relish a joke when he was himself the butt of ridicule, almost as 
well as when he cracked it on the head of another. 

I have said that Patrick brought a sum of money with him from 
Ireland, and it is necessary that the reader now should know what 
he did with it. He bought him a "nate little bit of a vessel" for 



464 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

the coasting-trade, of which he became captain, and in which he 
had made several profitable voyages, at the time of which I write. 

In the neighborhood of Paddy Shane's domicil, lived a French- 
man and a Dutchman, both of whom, like Paddy, had been in 
this country but a short time. Monsieur Parley Vous Francois, 
the Frenchman, and Mynheer Van Vonswitzenswizzle, the 
Dutchman, had been guilty of playing several pranks at the ex- 
pense of Paddy, just after he landed on these shores, when, to 
use his own language, he was "a green bit iv a boy, an he warn't 
looken what they wur afthur at all, at all." 

One of the pranks consisted in selling Paddy a large lot of bed- 
bugs, telling him that they were silk-worms just hatched, which he 
very carefully put in his bedstead, with the intention of " coolti- 
vating the beautiful leetle cratures." Alas! poor Paddy was 
almost eaten up by them; literally bled to death. 

"Blood and thunder take ivery one iv ye," he exclaimed a few 
days after, when he met the two wags, "but itsmeself i'U be afther 
fixin ye for this mane thrick iv ye, ye furriner spalpeens, ye. Och ! 
noo, an ye may laugh sure, but may ivery saint forgit Paddy 
Shane, an he don't make ivery one iv ye be afther laughin on the 
wrong side. The divil take Paddy Shane, an he don't play ye a 
thrick till yer heart's content." 

Paddy vowed revenge for the blood and sleepless nights he had 
lost, when the bed-bugs were "afthur atin him up sowl and body." 
Time passed on, and the bed-bug trick was forgotten by all but 
Paddy; as well as a trick they had played upon him, in per- 
suading him that a mud-machine in the harbor was the electro- 
magnetic telegraph; and on going on board of which, he was 
knocked overboard. 

" An sure it was meself," said Paddy, with an elongated, dole- 
ful countenance, "that was flounderin in the mud, and thryin to 
git till shore, with me Sunday suit on. Och! bad luck to ye, 
ivery one iv ye, ye furriner spalpeens; the back iv me hand 
till ye." 

Paddy had made several trips along the Southern coast, and at 
length returned with a great curiosity, which he had purchased at 
a great price. He disseminated this intelligence in such a man- 
ner as to excite unbounded curiosity in the minds of the French- 
man and Dutchman, and Monsieur Parley Vous was particularly 
anxious to see the humming-bird's nest; neither he, nor Mynheer 
Van Vonswitzenswizzle, suspecting for a moment that Paddy was 
designing a trick. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 465 

The reader is aware, I presume, that there is a very venemous 
race of insects, nearly or quite as large as the wasp, called hor- 
nets, that build a nest sometimes almost as large as a bushel 
basket, having a hole on one side, through which the hornets go 
in and out; and that when this nest is disturbed, the enraged 
creatures pour out in a swarm to avenge the injury ; and woe to 
him who has the temerity to approach. The nest is usually sus- 
pended from the limb of a tree. 

Paddy had procured, in the woods of Virginia, one of these 
nests, which he called a humming-bird's nest, and expatiated 
largely on the beauty of the "swate leetle cratures." The hole 
in the side of the nest he had carefully stopped, declaring that if 
the charming little birds were let out in open space they would 
fly away; and his friends. Monsieur Parley Vous Francois and 
Mynheer Vonswitzenswizzle, would be deprived of the great 
pleasure of hearing them hum; at the same time assuring them 
that nothing ever was so beautiful, and no music so sweet, as that 
made by these little humming-birds. 

The curiosity of Monsieur and Mynheer rose to the highest 
pitch. They examined the nest with a curious eye; turned it from 
side to side ; and asked many questions concerning the beautiful 
little birds that hummed so sweetly; to all of which Patrick an- 
swered, in such a manner as to increase, if possible, their wonder, 
as well as their desire to see them. 

" Och! noo," said Patrick, taking up the nest, " an its yer two 
selves, perhaps, 'ud like till see the dear little cratures a flyin 
about the cabin." 

" Oui, Monsieur Patrick," returned the delighted Frenchman, 
" it will give me de grand satisfactiong to have de pleasair, sair, to 
see de petite humbird. Monsieur Van Vonswitzenswizzle vill 
help me have de grand satisfactiong." 

" Yaw, Mynheer Parley Vous," answered the Dutchman, " it 
ish mit greater pleashur as you, I sees de beaudiful humbird. Va 
color is de beaudiful creadur, Patrick?" 

" Och! noo, an isn't it all over red an brown, afther bein spec- 
kled wid all sorts o' colors from its head till its tail, sure. Just 
come down in the cabin, where the purty cratures can't be afther 
flyin aff*, an I'll jist then let them out noo." 

Down went the Dutchman and the Frenchman into the cabin, 
tickled amazingly at the idea of having an opportunity to see the 
beautiful humming-birds come out of the nest, all over red and 

59 



466 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

brown, and speckled with all sorts of colors, from the head to 
the tail. 

" Noo mind yer eye," said Paddy on the outside, " an don't ye 
be afther puUin out the stopper till let the birds out o' the nest, 
intil it's meself that's fastened the door o' the cabin noo, for I'm 
jist afeard the birds 'ill be aff." 

Paddy accordingly fastened the door of the cabin; and, peeping 
through a crevice made by the sliding doors, he, with a suppressed 
laugh, told Monsieur Parley Vous Francois to hold the nest, while 
Mynheer Van Vonswitzenswizzle should pull out the stopper. 
With the delightful expectation of seeing and hearing the beau- 
tiful little humming-birds flying and humming around the cabin, 
Mynheer Van Vonswitzenswizzle pulled out the stopper; when, 
lo! out poured a swarm of roaring and enraged hornets made 
more savage by having been long kept confined and tumbled 
about in the nest. With fury they rushed upon Parley Vous and 
Vonswitzenswizzle, stinging them in every part of the body un- 
covered. 

"Oh! mine Dat! mine Dat!" roared the Dutchman, "mine eye 
ish stung clean out of de sight." 

" Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu !" exclaimed Parley Vous, dropping 
the nest and rushing to the cabin door, "save dis leetle French- 
man from de diable humbird. Ah ! bezook, sair, Monsieur Pa- 
trick, me shoot you wid de small sword. Diable, me runne you 
trou de pody wis de pistol. Open te door, open te door, me killa 
you, bezook." 

Paddy laughed until he thought he had carried the joke far 
enough, and then opened the door, taking good care to make his 
escape, ere the enraged Frenchman and Dutchman reached the 
deck. One of the hornets had stung the Dutchman on the lip, 
which it swelled to an enormous size, giving him a very grotesque 
and ludicrous appearance ; while the Frenchman's eyes were 
almost closed up. They never could bear the name of a hum- 
ming-bird afterwards, and never again desired to see a humming- 
bird's nest; though they were well satisfied that Paddy had, in the 
language of the Latin quotation at the head of this story, given to 
every one his own. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 467 



€^i lEa5 %uh. 



The following affecting incident, worthy the attention of the Natural Historian, recently 
occurred in Delaware. A young bird was caught in a garden by a cat, and was so much 
injured before the humane proprietor of the garden could get to it, that it could not stand. 
He took it to a place of safety and laid it down, when it turned upon its back in the ago- 
nies of death. The mother bird came with food in its mouth, and, after flying around it 
in great distress, alighted and endeavored to coax it to get on its feet and eat. Finding 
that it took no notice of her, she appeared greatly distressed, and in the act of trying to 
feed it, she fell down and expired at its side. 

At morn the mother of a httle bird 

Sat gaily singing on a garden tree; 
At noon no more those joyous notes were heard, — 

The mother mourn 'd, alas! in misery! 
A cruel one crept softly to the shade. 

As erst the serpent crawl'd in Eden's bow'r; 
Blasted a scene of pure and holy love, 

And broke a mother's heart in one short hour. 

Bleeding upon its back, with half-clos'd eye, 

She saw the idol of her fond heart there; 
In vain she coax'd her darling pledge to fly, 

In vain she flew around it in despair; 
She gazed a moment, with a piteous look, 

On her expiring offspring at her side; 
And while her heart in its deep anguish broke, 

She flutter'd, fell, and by her lov'd one died! 

Oh! ye, of youthful years, whose hands have riven 

The bands of love in many a downy nest, 
Think of the grief your cruel sport hath given ! 

Ah! think how many a mother's heart unblest, 
Hath bled and broke, when from her tender care 

You bore away her nestlings in the grove ! 
Oh! think of all her blasted bhss, and spare 

What God hath bless'd, a picture of pure love! 

And ye, the children of a greater growth — 

Sportsmen, who thro' the fields and forests go; 
Better that ye should spend your Kves in sloth. 

Than seek amusement in a creature's woe! 
Ah! why destroy the children of sweet song. 

That in great Nature's Church orisons raise? 
For wanton cruelty is sinful wrong. 

Done to the creature and Creator's praise, 



468 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

I would not, could not call that man my friend,* 

Whose hand could crush a creature God has made; 
Whose cruel heart in carelessness could rend 

Those heart-felt ties that love on all hath laid; 
Oh! let me sooner bind than break one heart, 

Bound by affection, flowing from above! 
What God hath join'd no man in sport should part,- 

He wills in goodness all should live and love. 



C|iB Im f tar. 

Hark! heard you not the step of gray-hair'd Time, 

Hast'ning along life's lane with youthful ease? 
Hist! heard you not his voice, with sound sublime. 

Tolhng the knell of buried centuries? 
Another year has pass'd away, with all 

Its wrecks, on time's unturning, trackless tide; 
So are man's triumphs ever doom'd to fall, 

And be lost in oblivion's vortex wide; 

The never varying home of his most vaunted pomp and pride. 

Ah! while we hail with joy the new-born year. 

Let us reflect on time's receding wave: 
And while upon the dead one falls our tear, 

Remember we are nearer to the grave; 
Millions, like us, have lived and loved and died; 

Millions, like us, have hail'd each New Year's Day; 
Where are they now.' — With all their pomp and pride. 

They long since from the earth have pass'd away! 

From century to century, the giddy and the gay, 

In days long pass'd, when Greece in glory shone, 

And Rome was mighty mistress of the world, 
MilHons have hail'd the years as, one by one, 

They came and were into oblivion hurl'd; 
So did THEY follow — like the woodland leaves, 

Green in their glory, they decay'd and fell; 
Or gather'd in the field, like golden sheaves. 

Were garner 'd in the grave, where we shall dwell; 

And yet how many millions will be, who can tell ? 

* The poet Cowper declares that he would not rank that man in the list of his friends, 
though graced with polished manners and fine sense, who would step aside in his evening 
path to crush a worm. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 469 

Oh! then let us in wisdom view the past, 

And profit by experience — let the mind 
Dwell with a deep reflection on the last; 

And in the present year resolve to find 
An antidote for evil, and retrieve 

All wrongs that we have done in days gone by; 
Oh! let us up to virtue's dictates Hve, 

And learn that useful lesson how to die. 

That we may find that far oflT land of light and love on high. 

We have no lease ev'n of a single hour, 

This day the thread of life in twain may part; 
There is a mighty, nay, Almighty Power, 

That may this instant still the thoughtless heart; 
Then let us on this New Year's Day, in truth, 

Resolve on life's reform; to live in love, 
To practice virtue, which alone forsooth. 

Can lift us to the land of light above. 

Where friend shall meet with friend, and shall in joy forever rove. 



\BltX. 



On seeing her Tomb in St. Andrew's Churcli-Yard, erected by the Rev. Corry 
Chambers, her husband. 

Oh! if there's a heart in the land of the blest, 
'Tis that for which mine is so deeply distress 'd: 
We'll meet, yes, we'll meet when I pass thro' the grave. 
In the land of the beautiful, — land of the brave. 

She lov'd me on earth, and to her it is given. 
To love me beyond the blue stars in the heav'n; 
At the gates made of gold, in the future we'll meet. 
And lock'd in her arms will that meeting be sweet. 

Oh! when not a friend save my mother I had, 
I look'd in her eye and I saw she was glad. 
That a brother she had, tho' a rude child of sin. 
Whom she, by her love, from his habits could win. 

Ah! would that I never had gazed on the fair, 
For woman has spoken my doom of despair; ^ 

From her lip that's so luscious in love fell the tone. 
That sent me to ruin and left me alone. 



EULOGY ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF 

§x. |0s|«a p0lDarlr ^axBt^, 

Of Liberty Toicn, Frederick Coxinty, Maryland; who died of Consumption in 
the 25th year of his age. 



-* — • — ^- 




HIS gifted and promising young physician was 
the only son of the venerable Dr. John W. Dor- 
set, who was formerly a Surgeon in the United 
States' Navy. He sailed with Stephen Decatur 
in the Brig Argus from Boston — was with him at 
the burning of the Frigate Philadelphia, in the 
the port of Tripoli, and in every action during 
three years; under the brave and lamented Com- 
modore Edward Preble, from 1803 to 1806, at 
which time he returned home. 

That aged father, after having faced the ene- 
mies of his country and braved danger and death 
in the deadly conflict in which many a brave 
heart ceased to beat, has lived to see the pride 
of his heart, and the staff and stay of his declining 
years go down to the grave in the very morning 
of manhood and the bloom of beauty; struck down by consumption, 
that fell destroyer of our race, that bids defiance to medical skill, 
and falls alike on age and infancy; on the brave and the beautiful; 
the graceful and the gifted. None but a father's heart — none but 
a heart like his, that has tasted the bitter cup of anguish, and felt 
the pang of sorrow from more shafts than one, can conceive of 
the utter desolation that pervades his bosom at seeing, thus early, 
an amiable and gifted son given to an untimely tomb, who bade 
fair to be an honor to the science of medicine, and to fill his 
station of respectability and usefulness when, full of age and 
honors, he should be gathered to the mausoleum of his fathers. 

But alas! the shaft of death, with unerring aim, has hit its shining 
mark, and society has lost one of its loveliest ornaments. The 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 471 

mind, in which genius was rearing a temple to future fame and 
usefulness, is no more — the heart, in which the noblest virtues 
loved to dwell, is silent forever! 



Oh! Death, how cruel art thou thus to bliglit, 
E'en in the morn of manhood and in bloom; 

The best beloved, the beautiful, the bright, 
duenching the light of genius in the tomb ! 

Must the most fair the soonest fade away. 
And happy hearts be doom'd, alas! to sigh? 

Canst thou not spare earth's ornaments a day, 
While thousands, loathing life, desire to die? 

Ah! thus it ever is that virtuous worth. 
For which we live and love, is rudely torn; 

Just as it binds our hope-lit hearts to earth, 

'Tis snatch 'd away, and leaves our souls to mourn. 

Thus was the aged father's bosom blest, 
With all that made life happy — a dear son; 

But thou, oh! Death, that bosom hath distress 'd. 
Blasted his hopes, and left his heart undone. 

Around that home an Eden once was spread, 
And beautiful the flowers were blooming there; 

But Death twice enter 'd, numbering willi the dead 
A son of science, and a daughter fair. 

Society and Science both must mourn. 

O'er the sad relics of departed worth; 
And genius bend in sorrow o'er the bourne. 

Where slumbers now an ornament of earth. 

His was a soul of honor everywhere, 
That to ignoble actions scorn 'd to bend; 

True to his trust in friendship's faith, he ne'er 
Forgot a favor, or forsook a friend. 

He read the book of nature, and he saw. 
In every thing; each feather, fly, and flower, 

An evidence of the eternal law. 

And of a mighty overruling Power. 

And, with a Christian's heart, he did adore 
That wondrous Being, who bids planets roll; 

Who bids the lightnings leap, the ocean roar, 
And is of all the centre and the soul. 



472 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

His friends wei-e many, and his foe not one, 
His bosom's blessing he to all men gave; 

Upright in all things, and a duteous son, 
He trod the path of virtue to the grave. 

Oh! it is sad to think that one so good. 
That one so gifted, should so soon depart! 

Had he but lived, methinks he might have stood 
In Fame's proud temple, from the world apart. 

Ah ! who can tell the future destiny 

Of such a mind, with much of knowledge crown'di 
He might have shone, with glorious brilliancy. 

In science' halls, by future time renown 'd. 

But ah ! just as he entered the career 
Of fame and usefulness, he met his doom; 

Slowly he pined and perish 'd — many a tear 
Has been pour'd forth o'er his untimely tomb. 

Full often will his lonely sire repair 

Where now he sleeps, within his lowly bed. 

To dwell, alas ! a weeping hermit there. 
And mourn, in unavailing grief, the dead. 

But oh! his happy soul hath soar'd above 
On Seraph wings; it sleeps not in the sod; 

In yonder far off land of light and love, 
He dwells within the garden of his God. 

He died as dies the good man, and behold ! 

The angels tune their holy harps in Heaven; 
And open wide the glittering gates of gold, 

To welcome him to whom a crown is given. 

His virtues he bequeath 'd us, that we yet 
May meet him in a lovelier land than this; 

Where darkness is unknown — suns never set, 
And sorrow never comes, but all is bliss. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 473 



HeflFttion^ on t^e leiit^ of Sames Planning, 

Son of James L. and Miry Roche, loho died in Jfl,lmington, Del., on Saturday, 
the 11th of March, 1848, in the third year of his age. 

In the dying moments of this peculiarly interesting child, a circumstance occurred, which 
was the most irresistibly tender and touching to the heart of sensibility, of any that I have 
ever met with, or treasured among poetical reminiscences. Whilst the father was bending, 
in the deep anguish of his soul, over his dying child, the very idol and angel of his affec- 
tions, and in whose existence all his hopes and happiness were centred, the expiring child, 
seeing the agonies his beloved father was enduring, and forgetful of his own sufferings, 
reached forth his little hand, and wiped away a tear which had just gushed from a heart 
breaking with anguish. I have seen a wretched father and miserable mother mourning, in 
the wild distraction of despair, over a dying child that was idolized ; and I have seen a little 
child come to the bedside to see a dear and devoted father die ; but never, no, never have 
I witnessed an incident so powerfully calculated to rend the coldest and most unfeeling 
heart, as this. Even the solitary thought of an idolized child, when dying, thus wiping 
away the tear from the eye of an agonized parent, is sufficient to touch, even to tenderness 
and tears, the generous soul alive to sympathy and sensibility. 

Oh ! yes, it is enough to pierce the heart, 

E'en as a dagger, with a transport wild; 
Thus to behold our brightest hope depart, — 

Thus to weep o'er a dear and dying child. 

When from our arms the aged disappear. 
Within the gloomy grave, we heave a sigh; 

Then wipe away, ourselves, the bitter tear, 
For it was natural for them to die. 

But oh! when Death thus snatches from our arms 
A much loved child, in early boyhood's bloom, 

It is severe to see its cherish'd charms. 
Regardless of our grief, sent to the tomb. 

Oh! how severe beside the bed to stand, 
And watch a dying son, now doubly dear; 

To see him stretch in love his little hand, 
And wipe away a weeping father's tear! 

Methinks the angels in the halls on high. 
Did bend in bliss that scene of love to see; 

And tho' they wept to see the sufferer die. 

Rejoiced to think he soon with them would be. 

With such a child 'twas liard to part, but oh ! 

Why should ye weep? He's in the land of love; 
He has escaped this wicked world of woe; 

Prepare to meet your happy child above ! 

60 



474 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

ON THE DEATH OF DR. GARRET S. LAYTON, OF MILFORD, DEL. 

Who was found dead in his bed. It was supposed that he died of Apoplexy. He was the 
son of LoWDEN LAtTON, Esq., and the brother of Judge Caleb S. Layton. 

Alas ! that Death should soonest take 

Our best loved friends away, 
And bid those hearts with anguish break, 

So joyous yesterday. 

In life we are in death — how true ! 

Ere yonder sun may set, 
Our souls may be demanded, too, 

And all we loved forget. 

Like him, we may in health appear, 

In manhood's stalwart morn; 
And ere an hour, a day, a year, 

Leave all our friends forlorn. 

But yesterday, he trod the earth. 

In manhood's noble pride; 
And in his breast a heart of worth, 

Pour'd on its purple tide. 

To-day, where is he? — lowly lies 

His form within the tomb; 
Sefd'd are his hps, and closed his eyes, 

In everlasting gloom. 

But where, oh ! where, is now that soul, 

That yearn 'd for human weal; 
That bade the Gospel's thunders roll, 

And sinners hearts to feel? 

Tho' in the solemn, silent sod, 

His relics now repose. 
To the blest garden of his God, 

His pious spirit rose. 

Weep not, ye friends, but oh ! prepare 

To meet him in the skies; 
Where tears are never shed, and where 

Bhss never, never dies. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 475 

Weep not ! — with angels bright above, 

He knows no grief nor care: 
But dwells in cloudless light and love, — 

Oh ! would that I were there ! 

'Tis hard to see our kindred fall, 

Whom we so dearly prize; 
But 'tis, alas! the doom of all, 

That dwell below the skies. 

But oh ! 'tis sweet to know that we 

Shall meet, in joy to reign; 
In yonder land of love, and be 

Ne'er doom'd to part again. 



B^oraan^^ l^arl 



Oh! tell me not that woman's heart 

Is full of guilt and guile; 
And say not treachery and art 

Are lurking in her smile; 
Say not her beautiful bright eye, 

But dazzles to deceive; 
Or that her tongue of ecstasy. 

Betrays while we believe, 

I never knew a moment's bliss. 

Like that remembered now; 
When first the impress of her kiss 

Was printed on my brow; 
Jn life I never knew an hour, 

To my fond soul so sweet; 
As when I bow'd in beauty's bower. 

At witching woman's feet. 

When sorrow my sad soul hath wrung, 

And sickness laid me low. 
The music of her touching tongue 

Hath banish 'd every woe; 
I ne'er to woman's faithful heart, 

Have yet appeal 'd in vain; 
She loves a solace to impart, 

And charm away our pain, 



476 WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 



leprteb laijr:. 

On! when on days departed, 

I gaze in memory's glass, 
And think of those who started 

With me, Hfe's race, alas! 
My bosom breathes a sigh 

Of soiTow, while I gaze 
Into the tomb of time — mine eye 

Weeps for departed days. 

Ah! where are those I cherished 

In childhood's happy hours? 
Oh ! they have long since perished, 

Like Summer's fairest flowers; 
I've stood by many a grave, 

And read the burial stone 
Of those, the beautiful and brave, 

Who left me here alone. 

Oh! when, in memory, calling 

The loved of boyhood's day; 
Who like the leaves now falling, 

Forever passed away; 
A gush of tender tears, 

My sorrow bids me shed; 
And, silently, I mourn the years 

Of cherished childhood fled. 

Ah! who the days departed < 

Without a tear can trace? 
And think of those who started 

With them life's joyous race, 
Without a sigh, to mark 

How many a heart did mourn; 
Ere death had sent them to the dark 

And solitary bourne? 

And years are by me stealing. 

Life's downward road I tread; 
That lonely home revealing. 

Where childhood's friends lie dead; 
Each day-dream warns my heart. 

Sad houi-s their tokens tell. 
That I like them, must soon depart, 

And bid the world farewell, 



"WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 477 

The hopes I prized have perished, 

And childhood's friends are gone; 
All, all I fondly cherished 

At boyhood's blissful dawn; 
Life's pleasures are but pain, 

Its hopes are vanity; 
And what is all the world but vain, 

Vain vanity to me? 



-» .* — «a~ 



Chiming (Off, 

POLITELY ADDRESSED TO THE LADIES OP WILMINGTON, 



Fair Ladies, humbly at your feet I bow. 
To breathe pure friendship's everlasting vow; 
To own my faults, and to atone them too, 
And sure I am I've nought but friends in you; 
The heavenly heart of woman cannot bear 
The gall of bitterness — so here's my pray'r: — 
If I have sinn'd agednst your blessed sex, 
If I have written aught your hearts to vex; 
If I have dared dispute your temperance creed. 
Or caused one tear to flow, one heart to bleed; 
If I have said one word that might be bent. 
Or twisted into meaning never meant; 
I humbly crave your pardon, while I kneel. 
For where 's the man your frowns that would not feel? 
I would not breathe one word to cause the gush 
Of blood to beauty's cheek, tho' much the blush 
Of modesty I have admii-ed — indeed, 
I could not bear to cause one heart to bleed. 

Ladies, to you I bow my knee alone. 
Your sceptre I obey, on beauty's throne; 
To man I'd scorn to say what I've said he»e, 
God never made the man that I could fear; 
Rather than crouch to him I'd court a grave, 
And perish sooner than his pardon crave; 
But when earth's angels frown upon me, where, 
Oh! where for solace can I then repair? 
Without your smiles I feel I am disgraced, 
Without your presence all the world 's a waste; 
Without society I am undone, 
I stand in life's wild wilderness alone; 



478 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

But when with woman I her gay smiles see, 
The world 's indeed a Paradise to me. 

There was a time when I at beauty's feet 
Bow'd down, and own'd such servitude was sweet; 
There was a time when I her silken chain 
With pride put on, and were it thus again 
I were a happier man — alas! that they — 
Those happy days — so swiftly pass'd away! 
For of life's hours that make us or that mar, 
The hours of courtship are the happiest far; 
'Tis a green spot upon life's dreary waste. 
With fancy's flowers most gorgeously graced; 
One day of love is worth a thousand years 
Devoted to sad sighs and tender tears. 

Oh! could I bow to her, and once more gaze 
On her dark eye, as oft in other days; 
And could I now indulge the dazzling dream, 
That once shone brightly on life's silv'ry stream, 
I were a happier man; all pure within. 
No longer the unhallow'd child of sin. 
From childhood's hours we both together grew. 
And purest bliss but with each other knew; 
I felt no joy and no corroding care. 
That that fair creature would not claim a share; 
Her smile was bliss to me, her heart was heaven, 
And had not th' last link of love been riven, 
I were a better man, for she had power 
To lead my footsteps to life's blissful bower; 
Her charms could woo me from all evil things, 
More happy far than conquerors or kings. 
Her silv'ry song could soothe me, when we stray 'd. 
At moonlight hours, along the flowery glade. 

From those blest days, the brightest on this earth, 
I've priz'd dear woman's pure and priceless worth; 
And had I worship 'd God with half the zeal 
That I have worship 'd her, I should not feel 
The scathe of sin upon my soul, as now. 
Nor yet would grief sit burning on my brow. 
As bows the Indian to the setting sun, 
When night approaclies and the day is done; 
Or as the Hindoo to his image kneels. 
And in -his soul a deep devotion feels; 
So have I bowed to woman, without art, 
The angel and the idol of my heart. 

Ladies, forgive the erring child of song. 
Frowns to your lovely faces ne'er belong; 
Think not I flatter — that I know would vex — 
I've always been a favorite with your sex; 
I ne'er appeal 'd to woman yet in vain, 
Say, Ladies, shall I unforgiv'n remain? 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 479 



Mut of ^^nesq. 



She dwells on the brow of the dark craggy mountain, 
Where the thundering cataract tumbles below; 

And she bathes in the streams of the crystalline fountain, 
Unawed by the billows that rapidly flow. 

She is seen in the night, on the black tempest driven, 
When the sea-boy has given himself to despair; 

When the lightning illumines the deep vault of heaven, 
Her form is beheld in the tremulous glare. 

She is seen when the blasts on the billowy ocean 

Heave the wide waste of waters in mountains of waves; 

On the vortex of ruin she pays her devotion, 

When the whirlwind of heaven distractedly raves. 

She sleeps on the down of the cygnet of Ganges; 

Her cradle the winds, and her curtain the sky; 
On her pillow of fame in the wild dream she ranges, 

And many a tear-drop illumines her eye. 

By the pale light of Luna in sorrow she wanders, 
When Sol in his splendor sinks down in the west; 

O'er the tomb of affection all lonely she ponders, 
And sighs for the heart that has sunk to its rest. 

She is heard in the temples where proud grandeur crumbles, 
Where the owl and the raven pour forth their wild strains, 

Where silence — dark silence, eternally slumbers, 
And the night of the tomb in their solitude reigns. 

On the banks of the stream, where the dash of the billow 

Breaks over the rock in its silvery foam — 
She plays on the harp 'neath the wind-beaten willow. 

And sighs for the pleasures of country and home. 

She sings her best song to her unhappy lover, 
Who has fled to the battle thro' dangers afar; 

she breathes out her soul to her pitiless rover, 

And starts when she hears the loud thunders of war. 

On the towering tree she engraves liis remembrance, 
When sorrow from madness sinks down to despair. 

And she crushes her lyre, the sweet soul of her semblance, 
While demons of prejudice laugh thro' the air. 



480 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

"THE PATHS OF VIETUE AUE THE PATHS OF PEACE.' 

Oh! I have sighed to be Uke those 

Who walk in virtue's peaceful path; 
But round me rose a thousand foes, 

The fiends of wretchedness and wrath; 
I sought that bugbear of the brain, 

Called happiness; but ah ! to me, 
I found that pleasure was but pain. 

And mirth itself was misery. 

Hope spread her rainbow round my soul, 

And fancy wove her magic spell; 
I lifted to my lips the bowl, 

And found within my heart a hell; 
Ambition's baubles 'lured my sight. 

But dazzled only to decay; 
Like meteors of a moonless night. 

They flashed and faded far away. 

I sought the bubble bliss in fame, 

In fortune, and in friendship free; 
But found, alas ! it was the same 

In liquor, love and luxury; 
The bubble, as I grasped it, broke, 

Tho' o'er my soul a light it cast, 
And from the dazzling dream I woke 

To pain and penitence at last. 

Oh! Solomon, like thee I found 

All was but vanity's control. 
That pleasure's gay and giddy round 

Was but vexation of the soul; 
And now^ tossed on the stormy sea 

Of passion, prejudice and pride; 
I sigh, sweet piety, for thee 

To be my guardian and my guide. 

I sigh to walk in virtue's path. 

My soul from sin and sorrow free — 
Free from my God's avenging wrath. 

In light, in love and liberty: 
My soul is sick of joys that die. 

Oh! would that I to God were given! 
Oh! that my heart covdd look on high. 

And claim one holy hope of heaven! 



WKITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 481 

When conscience, with a scorpion tongue, 

To anguish goads my writhing soul. 
For all the gifts of God I've flung 

Away, I seize the maddening bowl. 
And while the demon of despair 

Dethrones the monarch of the mind, 
I breathe in penitence a prayer. 

And weep, oh! yes, I weep to find 

That I've abused the gifts of God, 

And spurned his goodness plainly shown: 
Oh! would that now his chastening rod 

Would bid my sorrowing soul atone! 
One hour of pious joy is worth 

A thousand years of earthly bliss; 
For if there's peace upon this earth. 

And heaven below, 'tis this, 'tis this ! 



Reflections occasioned by having recently received from a very intelligent lady of 
Georgetown, District of Columbia, some flowers which were gathered in Scotland in the 
year 1762, and which retain their color, notwithstanding eighty years have rolled down the 
torrent of time since they bloomed in their beauty. They have certainly faded in a mea- 
sure, but I mean that it is astonishing that any color should be retained through so long a 
period. They have entirely lost their odor. To the lady who so kindly sent them to me, 
[ return a thousand thanks. Among the many presents of flowers, &c., which I have 
received from ladies of this and other cities, I never before possessed a flower eighty 
years old. 

O'er Scotia's hills, in beauty's gay built bowers. 
Once bloomed in brilhance these now faded flowers; 
Upon the air their fragrance once was shed. 
The eyes that saw them bloom are dim and dead; 
The race of him who nursed them now is o'er. 
The breast they once adorned shall beat no more; 
The hand that plucked them in the grave is cast, 
They linger still to link us with the past. 

Since beauty blest these lovely flowers in bloom, 
What millions have descended to the tomb! 
How many martyred millions of mankind. 
Have sunk beneath the sorrows of the mind! 
How many hearts have bled and broke, to prove 
The pangs and penalties of faithless love ! 
The forms that bowed to beauty in her bowers, 
Have faded and forever, like these flowers. 

61 



482 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Full many a heart, life's anguish doomed to know, 
Hast lingering loved, or withered in its woe! 
Of all the woes that in this world we feel. 
Of all the pangs that passion may reveal, 
The keenest yet the human heart hath proved, 
Is still to love and yet not be beloved; 
To feed the fires that in the bosom burn, 
And find in faithless hearts no fond return. 

What storms and tempests have convulsed the earth. 
Since these fair flowers in beauty had their birth ! 
Crowns have been doomed to crumble and decay, 
Kings, conquerors, and captives, passed away; 
Princes and potentates, in pomp sublime. 
Have floated down the mighty tide of time, 
'iMid ruined empires have in dust decayed. 
Flourished to fall, and like these flowers to fade. 

Where are the millions who, on Scotia's shore. 
Then lived and loved? — alas! they are no more; 
The gay, the gifted, beautiful and brave. 
Have long been gathered to the greedy grave; 
Shrouded in death lies many a lovely form 
Whose heart once beat with hope and wishes warm; 
Whose eye once beamed with bliss and beauty bright, 
And blest full many a heart with love and light. 

Sweet Scotland, oft I sigh to tread thy shore. 
Thy mounts to climb, and maidens to adore; 
I long to linger in Ben Lomond's shades, 
Where many a wild flower flourishes and fades: 
Amid thy gay, green solitudes sublime. 
How sweet to muse, nor mark the march of time — 
To see the sun ascending hills above, 
The emblem of a Saviour's light and love ! 

Lady, 1 long to visit, on swift wings. 
The tombs and temples of old Scotia's kings; 
Her castles, where once moved the great and gay, 
But crumbhng now, virith ages long grown gray; 
Where minstrels sung full many a war-song sweet, 
And Norman knights bowed down at beauty's feet. 
Sweet days of chivalry, when bards inspired. 
Sung woman's worth, and valor's bosom fired. 

I sigh to stand amid the palace scene, 
Where Scotland's Mary moved, a lovely queen; 
Upon whose face were seen the marks of mind, 
And shone the light of intellect refined. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 483 

Alas! that she should pine and perish too, 
By one whose heart no kindred feeling knew; 
Baptized in blood, hke Essex, in her bloom, 
She passed from gloomy dungeons to her doom. 

I long to hnger near the magic spot, 

Where genius first inspired the mind of Scott 

Where Burns reposes in his rural shade, 

A mighty minstrel, and by nature made; 

Who though a simple shepherd now we scan, 

Was in his mind the model of a man; 

Who gave to millions, then unborn, his name, 

And bound his brow with fadeless wreaths of fame. 

Sweet land of love and learning, how I long 
To tread where trod thy^classic sons of song; 
I sigh to gaze upon thy mighty men, 
Who charmed the world with pencil and with pen; 
Thy halls of science fain my feet would tread, 
Sacred to mind and to thy mighty dead; 
Those glorious men who had immortal powers. 
But now have faded like these once gay flowers. 



t Mt danbli^r. 



'TwAs evening, in a shady grove. 
When first I heard the harp of love, 
The sun behind the hills had rolled 
Thro' one wide flood of flaming gold. 
And o'er the mountain monarch's throne, 
The moon in silver shadows shone, 
And on she trip'd thro' heaven's hall. 
Like bridal beauty at a ball. 
Her glances danced upon the deep. 
Like smiles upon an infant's sleep. 
And played upon the flowery peak. 
Like blushes o'er a lady's cheek, 
And o'er the silver surface far 
Shone the bright shooting of a star. 
A lovely lady thro' the brake 
I saw beside the lucid lake. 
She stood and gazed upon her shade 
Beneath the dark blue deep displayed, 



484 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

And oft she stretched her ivory arm, 

To grasp the tall ideal form. 

Upon her cheek the rich red gush 

Had from her heart conveyed a blush. 

A holy light dwelt on her face, 

Warm from the pencil pure of grace. 

Her clustering curls in ringlets rolled 

On her white breast like grapes of gold. 

Her azure eyes with softness shone 

Like stars that stud the heavenly throne. 

Where'er her silver sandals trod, 

Red roses sprung and graced the sod. 

Where'er she turned her eyes around, 

Rich ripening peaches pressed the ground, 

And bending branches at command. 

Of clustering plums would kiss her hand. 

She launched her bark — with long light oar, 

She paddled from the flow'ry shore. 

And as her bark bent to the wind. 

It left no track or trace behind. 

Ah ! thus, she cried, man finds a grave, 

Nor leaves one trace in life's dark wave. 

Now far receded from the land. 

She smiled and waved her little hand. 

And struck the harp — the ling 'ring lay 

Rung round the rocks and died away. 

And echo, in her aiiy cell. 

Struck each note on her silver shell. 

And mocked the sweetly warbling wire 

Like sighs that sweep the iEolean lyre, 

how, I cried, how sweet to be 
The mistress of such minstrelsy .•' 

1 Hstened — all was still and lone. 
The lucid lake in silence shone. 

Save distant sounds that o'er and o'er 

Came mingled with the ocean's roar. 

Far, far the little bark now bore 

The lovely lady from the shore. 

Just on the verge of space her sail 

I saw still fluttering in the gale. 

How like, I cried, the boundless sea, • 

The great lake of eternity? 

When souls embark for evermore. 

And gaze on life's receding shore. 

That hour is still to memory dear, 

When from the shore 

'Mid the ocean's roar. 
She paddled a beauteous Gondolier, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 485 



€^t XMington. 



The follomng lines are descriptive of that awful scene of the burning Steamboat, which 
has brought hopeless misery to many a good and generous heart. Oh ! that I could stretch 
my hand and wipe away the tears of surviving friends-that I could heal the broken hearts 
of the widow and the fiitherless ! But there is only one balm, and that balm is the grace 
of God. 

Night rested on the sea — tlie moon alone, 
O'er the wide waste of rolling waters shone; 
The glorious sun had sunk in western skies, 
And the dim stars looked down like angels' eyes. 
As if they wept in heav'n the approaching doom, 
And dropped their tears o'er that untimely tomb. 

The warm hand pressed, with many a generous token, 
The long embrace once o'er, and farewell spoken, 
The buoyant boat, swift leaves the crowded shore; 
To gaze on forms they shall behold no more, 
Upon the deck friends strain their anxious eyes, 
Till evening drops her curtain o'er the skies. 
Now o'er the waters, where the wanderers sleep, 
Went forth that train upon the treacherous deep; 
They thought of friends to whom they should return. 
Nor thought, alas! those friends so soon would mourn. 
In blissful dreams they think no more they roam. 
But tread again the happy halls of home; 
Childhood, and age, and beauty brightly blest, 
Thoughtless of danger on the dark waves rest; " 
When lo! there comes upon the ear a cry. 
And the word Fire! sweeps roaring thro' the sky; 
The red flames flash upon the rolling flood. 
Till the wide waters seem one sea of blood; 
On the cold blast dread Azrael comes in ire. 
Waves his dark wings, and fans the fearful fire; 
Wild o'er the deck, and with dishevelled hair. 
Rush the sad victims shrieking in despair: 
"Where is my son?" the frantic father cries. 
And "where my sire?" the weeping son rephes. 
Amid that scene of terror and alarms, 
Dear woman, wailing, throws her ivory arms; 
And shall she perish? nay, one effort saves— 
Q,uick launch the boats upon the boihng waves; 
They're lost! Oh! God, they sink to rise no more! 
A hundred voices mingle in one roar. 
From post to post, the affrighted victims fly. 
While the red flames illumine sea and sky; 
The piteous look of infancy appeals 
For help, but oh ! what heart in danger feels ? 



486 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

None save a mother's; see lier clasp her boy! 
Floating she looks to find her second joy; 
She sees him now, and with a transport wild, 
Save! save! oh save! she cries, my drowning child! 
She waves her arms, and in the next rude wave. 
The mother and her children find a grave; 
Locked in her arms her boy sinks down to rest. 
His head he pillows on her clay cold breast; 
A mother's love not death itself can part. 
She hugs her dying children to her heart; 
And fain would perish more than once to save 
Her blooming boys from ocean's awful grave. 

A sail ! a sail ! a hundred voices rave — 
In the dim distance, on the brilliant wave. 
She comes, and hope cheers up those hearts again. 
They shall be saved — alas ! that hope is vain ! 
The dastard wretch beholds the imploring crew. 
Looks on the blazing boat, then bids adieu; 
Leaves them to perish in a watery grave. 
Rather than stretch his coward hand to save. 
Go, thou inhuman being; be thy name 
A demon's watchword, and the mark of shame; 
Go teach the tiger what to thee is given. 
And be the scoff of man, the scorn of heaven; 
Be all those mourning mothers' tears thy owij, 
Till human feelings melt thy heart of stone. 

Now o'er the ice-cold sea the victims swim. 
Their limbs are helpless, and their eyes grow dim; 
With cries for help, they yield their lingering breath. 
As one by one they close their eyes in death; 
The blazing wreck a moment shines more bright. 
One cry is heard, she sinks, and all is night. 
The moon hath set — ^a darkness shrouds the lee, 
No voice is heard upon that moonless sea; 
Soft pity spreads her wings upon the gale. 
And few are left to tell the dreadful tale. 
From down-beds warm, and from their joyous sleep, 
Full many an eye afar shall wake to weep; 
Full many a heart a hapless parent mourn. 
From friends and home, alas ! untimely torn. 
Fair Baltimore, thy children too must weep, 
A father, husband, brother in the deep; 
And beauty's eyes shall often melt in tears. 
O'er the sad tale in future days and years; 
The lisping child will to its mother cling. 
And ask what day its father home will bring; 
Alas! poor child, no father comes to thee — 
He sleeps, unshrouded, in the dark blue sea; 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARU. 4 87 

No more thy mother shall build up the fire, 
To welcome home her husband, and thy sire; 
No more the mother, when the day is done. 
Shall long to look ujjon her gifted son; 
No more shall clasp him to her beating breast. 
And breathe a prayer that he may still be blest; 
Far from his mourning mother's arms he sleeps, 
Nor knows the friend who o'er his fate now weeps. 
How many a tear shall yet, alas! be shed. 
O'er the wide tomb that holds so many dead! 
Mysterious are thy ways, O God ! yet just 
Thou art in all things — let us bow and trust. 



t IBanbring Minstrd. 

On a sea-beaten rock that o'erhangs the dark billow. 
Where the winds and the waves beat enveloped in foam. 

He rests his lone head on the rough rugged pillow. 
And weeps for his kindred, his country, and home. 

His sigh, with the sound of the wild surging ocean. 
Now mingles in murmurs and dies on the wind; 

And he bows his white knee, and bends down in devotion. 
While his dark rolling ringlets float wildly behind. 

Now the mem'ry of country, of home, and of childhood, 

Arises before him all lovely and fair, 
He seems to behold his loved cottage and wild-wood. 

Then starts from his dream and awakes to despair. 

never, no never, he cries in his sadness, 
Shall I again tread on the threshold of home; 

Or press my fond friends to my bosom with gladness. 
Or thro' the wild woodland in happiness roam. 

Far, far from the scenes of my childhood I wander. 
Far, far from the blest and the beautiful shore; 

An exile alone in my sorrow I ponder. 
And weep for the home I shall visit no more. 

My harp is unstrung and it hangs on the willow, 
The winds through its wires wake a sorrowful strain. 

When borne to my ear by the breeze of the billow. 
Despair and distraction then fire my brain. 



488 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Farewell to my country, my cottage, and wild-wood, 
In a far foreign land still unfriended I roam; 

Adieu to my friends and affections of childhood, 
A long last adieu to my country and home. 



of t^F §tn. 



Son of the sea, I love to trace 

Thy path upon the wave; 
And view o'er ocean's silv'ry face, 

The sounding surges rave: 
And when the whirldwinds rend the air, 

And lightnings lave the lea, 
I think of what thy ship must share, 

Son of the stormy sea. 

I've seen the sun sink to his grave, 

In ocean's rolling deep; 
The stars fall in the western wave, 

Where hapless heroes sleep: 
I've seen in ocean's foamy flood. 

The dark moon sink o'er thee; 
But thy sun must go down in blood. 

Son of the sounding sea. 

I love to view thy beauteous bark. 

Bound to a foreign clime. 
When like the light -wing of the lark, 

She skims the surge sublime; 
How like the soul by time's tide borne. 

To dread eternity, 
Art thou when from thy own shore torn. 

Son of the roIHng sea. 

And how like the cheating chain. 

That binds life to man's heart, 
Is that one plank which from the main. 

Thy thoughtless form doth part; 
Pierce but that plank, and in the deep, 

On beds so billowy. 
Thy bones must bleach in endless sleep, 

Son of the stormy sea. 



Cfjc €uxmxtus ai ^c'mut. 



NO. I. 

the mind that delights in the wonderful, the 
^strange, the romantic, there is no greater resource 
[than may be found in the fields of science — in 
[the operations of nature, that are going on every 
day around us. But what we see every day, 
does not excite our curiosity until we inquire into 
the causes, and then we are astonished to find 
that we do not understand them. If we had never 
seen the sun rise, until to-day, what a wonder 
and astonishment it would excite in the minds 
of the people! And if I were to ask the cause 
of the simplest operations of nature, that we see 
every day, how few, even among the more sen- 
sible people, would be able to answer? so little 
do we inquire into cause and effect. For ex- 
ample — we every day blow the fire with a pair 
of bellows to make it burn, and we know it does so; but if the 
question were asked, "why does the fire burn, when I blow it 
with the bellows?" how few, even of sensible people, who think 
they know much, would be able to answer; perhaps not more than 
one in ten. And if the question were asked, of what the atmos- 
phere we breathe is composed, they could not reply. 

There are many curiosities connected with the air we breathe 
and its effects. Common air is composed of oxygen and nitrogen 
gasses, in the proportion of seventy-nine parts of nitrogen and 
twenty-one of oxygen. The exhilarating gas, which is breathed 
sometimes for amusement, and which causes persons to "cut 
such fantastic tricks," is composed of sixty-three parts of nitrogen 
and thirty-seven of oxygen, by weight. Here is a proof of design ; 
a proof of a Superior Power, and shows the wisdom of that Supe- 
rior Power. Were the proportions of the atmosphere reversed, 
were the greater paft of oxygen instead of nitrogen, the exhilarat- 
62 




490 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

ing effect would be so great, that man and all the animals on the 
globe, that breathe the air, would instantly go mad and destroy 
one another. This is proven by the exhilarating gas, which is 
composed of the same gasses as the atmosphere, only in different 
proportions. Life and flame both equally depend on oxygen for 
support, and it is by keeping a constant stream of oxygen directed 
on the fire, that causes it to burn more briskly when blown with 
bellows or the mouth. The oxygen of the air instantly takes fire 
in coming in contact with the burning wood. 

It has been proven by experiment, that life and flame equally 
depend on oxygen for support. A philosopher placed a dog and 
a candle in a brick oven, made air-light, having a glass window 
through which he could look, and he found that as the dog 
breathed and the candle burnt the portion of oxygen that was 
contained in the aif shut up in the oven, the dog and the candle 
became weaker and weaker, until they both expired at the same 
time. Oxygen is one of the most inflammable, as well as useful 
agents in nature, being engaged in many of her operations. 

Carbonic acid gas, or fixed air, such as is found in wells, and is 
given off from burning coal, is equally as fatal to life, and hence, 
in this coal-burning age, people, who burn it in close rooms, 
should be very particular about going to bed when it is burning, 
as persons have lost their lives by the pipe becoming a little 
detached. 

In regard to oxygen and carbonic acid gas, there is a beautiful 
reciprocity between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The 
leaves which are the lungs of trees and plants, breathe on one 
side, carbonic acid gas, which is thrown out from the lungs of 
animals ; and they throw out, on the other side, oxygen which is 
breathed in by the lungs of animals. Hence it is healthy to have 
living trees and plants around you, and it is the grand cause why 
the country is so much more healthy than a city. When we enter 
a large garden in full bloom, we feel exhilarated; not alone be- 
cause the eye is delighted, for a blind man could feel it; but be- 
cause the flowers are constantly throwing out oxygen, which the 
lungs breathe. In this reciprocity between plants and animals, 
nature works good to both. That which is fatal to the one, she 
makes the life of the other. How strange, too, that by combina- 
tion, she often makes two deadly poisons agreeable, harmless, and 
even necessary to man. Muriatic acid and soda, though poi- 
sonous when taken alone, form, when combined, our common 
table salt. How curious, also, is the fact, that come of the sub- 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 491 

Stances in nature, the most different in appearance, texture, color, 
weight, hardness, and indeed in every respect, are composed of 
the same material? Who, if he did not know, would suppose the 
diamond, raw cotton, and charcoal to be the same ? Yet, they 
are all the same carbon. The only difference is, that the diamond 
is pure crystallized carbon, while raw cotton and charcoal are 
mixed with earth. The diamond, when burnt, leaves no ashes; 
while the earthly parts of cotton and charcoal are left behind, after 
combustioa. Powder is made of cotton, because it is the same as 
the charcoal, that usually forms one of the ingredients of gun- 
powder. And the carbon being in a more minute state of division 
in the cotton than in the charcoal, it is so much the more powerful. 
Another of the curiosities of science is exhibited in the pressure 
of the air we breathe. Until the invention of the air-pump, man- 
kind had no knowledge of its pressure, or why the cider rises 
through a long tube into the mouth, when one end is placed in 
the barrel and the other sucked. The air-pump proves, that the 
atmosphere presses on every thing, with a weight equal to nearly 
fifteen pounds to every square inch, consequently, if we calculate 
the number of square inches on the body of a man of ordinary 
size, we shall find that he sustains a pressure from the air equal 
to about thirty-two thousand pounds. Were it not for the elasticity 
of the flesh and the air within him, a pressure of thirty-two thou- 
sand pounds would crush him to an atom ; but the force of the 
one, just counterbalances that of the other. Before the dis- 
covery of the air-pump, such operations as sucking cider through 
a tube, sucking the breast, &c., were explained by the word suction, 
which was a word without meaning, for, not knowing the cause, 
if you asked what is suction? the answer would have been, "it is 
suction." This is like the reasoning of some people; a thing is 
so, because it is so. If we fill a wine-glass with water, and, after 
placing a piece of paper on it large enough to cover the top and 
project a little, we turn it up, the pressure of the air against the 
paper will support the water. The glass and paper should be 
firmly pressed against the hand after being turned downward, so 
as to exclude all air before the hand is removed. The fly, in 
walking on the ceiling by forming a vacuum in its feet, is sustained 
by the pressure of the air. The child, when it sucks the breast, 
unconsciously, by instinct, performs a philosophical experiment, 
by forming a vacuum, or by withdrawing all air from the mouth, 
and the pressure of the air on the breast, forces the milk to fill up 
the space in his mouth. 



492 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

But one of the greatest curiosities in science is that operation 
of the air by which all sound is produced. When we consider 
that sound, and all the enrapturing variety of music, is nothing 
more than little waves made in the air, such as are made in water 
when a pebble is dropped into it, one circular wave or undulation 
succeeding another, we are astonished. Really, there is no sound 
in nature, but these little waves or undulations, when they strike 
on the drum of the ear, create a sensation which is conveyed to 
the brain, by the auditory nerve, and which we call sound. When 
you strike a bell, the particles of the metal vibrate or quiver, as 
you may perceive by placing your hand on it, and that quivering 
is imparted to the air, which goes off in circular waves until it 
reaches the ear; precisely as the waves go off to the shore, when 
a pebble is dropped in the water. These waves of air travel at 
the rate of eleven hundred and forty-two feet in a second, or about 
thirteen miles in a minute, in all directions. If, in their course, 
they strike against a smooth wall or rock, they rebound and fly 
back, and this we call an echo; for sound is reflected as well as 
light. It is by reflection from side to side of the trumpet, that the 
sound is so vastly increased. The air-pump has proved the fact, 
that where there is no air there is no sound. If a bell be placed 
under the receiver of an air-pump, and the air be pumped out, no 
sound falls on the ear, though you see the tongue strike the bell. 
In proportion as the air is admitted, the sound increases. Who 
would suppose that all the delightful harmony of music is mere 
illusion; that it is nothing more than this quivering in the air, 
which, in itself, can have no sound, independently of the ear? 
Thus, by the peculiar construction of the ear, man is made to 
enjoy that which really does not exist. This is a strong proof of 
the existence of a Superior Intelligence, who has so beautifully 
adapted every thing. The illusion of light is equally as great, for 
we suppose that we really see an object, when we only see the 
image formed on the back of the eye. This is proven by the 
reflecting telescope, in which a mirror stands between the eye and 
the object we look at. In this case we only see the image of the 
image of the object, yet the image is so like the object, that we 
believe we really see the object. 

The atmospheric air, independently of its supporting life, is of 
more importance than, at first view, we would suppose. Not only 
is it necessary to sound, but to sight. Were there no atmosphere, 
admitting that we could live, there would be no sound. We might 
strike a bell or blow an instrument, but no music would be heard; 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 493 

and, in like manner, were there no atmosphere, we could see no- 
thing, only when placed in the sunbeams. By the aid of the 
atmosphere, every thing around us reflects light, and were there 
no atmosphere, we should be in pitch darkness, only when in the 
direct rays of the sun. Take, for example, a room, the walls of 
which are black, and white-wash it; you will find that it is far 
lighter than it was before, on account of the light being reflected 
from all sides. 

Colors form the greatest illusion to which our senses are subject. 
We look at a leaf, and pronounce it green; and at another object, 
and pronounce it red; yet neither of them have any color. A 
body appears of this, that or the other color, according as they 
absorb and reflect the rays of light. There are but seven primitive 
colors in nature, as is proven by the prism, which dissects a ray 
of light; and there are but seven sounds. If we make other 
colors, it is by the mixture of those seven, and the notes of the 
piano are only a repetition of the seven sounds, the eighth or 
octave not being the same, more sharp or flat, as the first, and so 
of the rest. Some bodies will absorb all the rays but the red, 
which they reflect to the eye, and they appear to be red. Some 
will absorb all but the yellow and blue, and they appear green. If 
I look at my hat, it absorbs all the rays and appears black ; for, as 
the presence of all the rays in proper proportions make white, so 
the absence of all constitutes black. This is not mere conjecture; 
it has been proven by experiment. Sir Isaac Newton painted the 
seven primitive colors on a wheel, as nearly in proportion as he 
could, and when he turned the wheel with great velocity, so as to 
blend them in the eye, the appearance was nearly white, and 
would have been perfectly so, could he have hit upon the exact 
proportions in which they appear when refracted by a prism. It 
is curious to talk of dissecting a ray of light, but the prism, which 
is nothing more than a triangular or three square piece of glass, 
does it more completely than a knife may dissect a dead body. 

From what I have said, it appears that we do not see the object, 
but only the picture of it in the eye. That this picture is formed, 
may be proven, as follows: Take a beef's eye from the head; dis- 
sect off* the sclerotic coat, or covering on the back part, just so as 
to expose the clear transparent humor, and then place a piece of 
oiled paper against the back part. By holding the front part of 
the eye to any object, you will see a picture of it, upside down, 
on the oiled paper. Hence it seems that we see every thing top- 
sy-turvy or upside down, but judgment soon learns to correct this. 



494 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

It also appears, from what has been said, that no object at which 
we look, has any color. It appears to have, because it reflects 
whatever color it appears to have, to the eye. This is hard to 
swallow, by the mind that is but little acquainted with science, 
but by reflecting on the subject, it is apparent. If a body has a 
color, removing that body from one place to another will not de- 
stroy that color. You have, no doubt, seen something shining in 
the sand with the colors of the rainbow, and when you went to it, 
you found it to be nothing but a piece of colorless glass. Where 
are the colors? It had them, you thought, but they are gone. 
The reason is, that at a certain angle with the eye, the piece of 
glass reflected the rainbow colors, which it would not do in any 
other direction. The rainbow is an example of the same. At a 
certain angle, the rays of the sun fall on the drops of water in the 
cloud, and they reflect certain colors to the eye; but so soon as 
the angle changes, the rainbow colors are gone. Now if the 
colors were in the drops of water, they would remain there. 
Some bodies, as my handkerchief, for example, are always reflect- 
ing the red ray, and consequently it always appears to be red. 
Altering the texture or nature of a body, will alter its color; be- 
cause the change causes it to reflect another color. If you pound 
a piece of glass to powder, it has altogether a different appear- 
ance, as well as color, and instead of being transparent, becomes 
opaque. All the colors, instead of passing through it as before, 
are now reflected, and it becomes white. In bleaching a piece of 
yellow wax, the change it undergoes, from the chemical effects of 
air and light, causes it to reflect all the colors, instead of the yel- 
low one, and it appears white. 

The reason that we see through some bodies and not through 
others, is one of the curiosities of science. As we see only by 
means of the rays of light, wherever a ray goes the sight can 
follow. Light travels in straight lines from the sun to the eartli, a 
distance of ninety-five millions of miles, in eight minutes and 
some seconds. It never travels in a curved or crooked line; for 
if it did, we could see through a bent gun-barrel. All bodies, the 
texture of which is such as to let it pass through in straight lines, 
we can see through, such as glass. But those bodies, the parti- 
cles of which are disposed in crooked lines, we cannot see 
through, because the rays of light cannot enter them. 

There are so many curiosities in science, that I know not which 
to select. In motion, there are some things which appear very 
strange to the mind. As, for example, the fact that velocity is 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 495 

equivalent to both weight and hardness. If a body weighing one 
ton, move with twice the velocity of another weighing two tons, 
it will strike a bridge with the same force. If a soft body be 
moved with great velocity, it will have the properties of a hard 
one. To illustrate this: if you put an inch of candle into a mus- 
ket, with a heavy charge of powder, it will go through a plank, as 
a leaden ball would. A leaden ball, with a heavy charge, will go 
through a broad-axe. This seems strange, but it is true, and I will 
make it more plain that velocity makes up for the want of hard- 
ness. If you take a piece of molasses candy, or shoe-maker's 
wax, and press gently on it, it will yield or bend any way, but if 
you give it a sudden jerk, it snaps like a pipe-stem. A piece of 
wax that is quite soft in your hand, if thrown with all your 
strength against the wall, will fly into pieces. I remember to 
have seen an account, some years ago, of a machinist in New 
England, who wished to cut a saw-blade in two, without taking 
the temper out, and having some knowledge of the effect of velo- 
city, he cut a round piece from a stove-pipe, which he unrolled, 
and placed it in a lathe that went with great velocity. To his 
astonishment, when he presented the saw-blade to it, a roll of fire 
encircled it, while it went through the saw-blade as if it had been 
cheese. It is, no doubt, the velocity with which lightning flies, 
that gives it such immense power in rending trees. But, from my 
own experiments, I know that a man might as well be shot with 
a piece of candle as with a leaden bullet, in regard to the fatality. 
It is strange, that when a man is moving on a car or vessel, that 
his motion continues after he has once received it, whether he 
touches the moving body or not. When a car is running with 
great velocity, we would suppose, that if a man were to jump up, 
that the car would run from under him ; but this is not the case ; 
for, if he were standing within one foot of the edge of the hind 
part of the car, and it were possible for him to jump twenty or a 
hundred feet high, his motion received from the car would con- 
tinue, and he would come down on the very spot from which he 
jumped. I have amused myself, when sailing upon the Delaware 
Bay, by going up to the mast-head and holding out a ball, which 
fell on the deck just as far from the mast as I held it when I let it 
fall. When we have received the motion of a car, or any thing 
else, we cannot divest ourselves of it, which fact I will illustrate 
more plainly to the reader's mind: When a horse runs aw.iy, and 
is suddenly stopped by falling, his rider, having received his mo- 
tion, continues it, and pitches some distance over the horse's 



496 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD, 

head. This is exemplified when a man is standing in a boat, 
which suddenly strikes the wharf: the motion of the man con- 
tinues, and he is thrown on the wharf. 

But, perhaps, there are no curiosities in Optics, Pneumatics, 
Acoustics, or Mechanics, greater than those in Hydraulics and 
Hydrostatics. Some things relative to water strike the mind with 
wonder, among which is the fact, that a quantity of water, however 
small, may be made to counterbalance a quantity however large. 
A portion of water may be made to produce in one way, a power 
hundreds of times greater than in another. The force of water is 
in proportion to its height, for according to the height of a column 
of water, without any regard to the size of the column or the 
quantity, will be its pressure. This has been called the hydrostatic 
paradox. If a hogshead be filled with water, and a tube, not 
larger than a goose-quill, be inserted through the head of the 
hogshead, which tube shall rise as high as a house; if water be 
poured down that tube, it will, before it is full, burst the hogshead, 
and scatter the water with astonishing force. As I said before, 
the pressure is in proportion to the height of the column of water, 
without regard to the quantity. On this principle the hydraulic 
press has been made in which a small quantity of water exerts an 
immense power, which will bend bars of iron as if they were straws. 

A body, that weighs many pounds in the air, may, if weighed 
in water, weigh nothing. A live fish, if weighed in water, weighs 
nothing. Weighing a body in water is called specific gravity, and 
was discovered by Archimedes. King Hiero of Syracuse, had a 
golden crown made, and, though he believed that the goldsmith 
had cheated him, by mixing alloy with the gold, he knew of no 
means by which he could discover the truth. Archimedes weighed 
the crown in air, and then in water, by which means he found 
that the king had been cheated. All bodies of the same size, 
when put into water displace an equal quantity of water, the 
weight of which quantity will be taken off the weight of the body, 
when weighed in water; that is, a body will weigh just as much 
less, when weighed in water, than it does when weighed in air, 
as the quantity of water would weigh that the body displaces when 
it is put in the water. Suppose I weigh a square inch of gold and 
a square inch of brass in water; they will both displace the same 
quantity of water, and we will suppose the square inch of water 
to weigh one ounce, which is to be taken from the weight of each 
of the metals when weighed in water. Now if the gold weighed 
eighteen ounces in air, and the brass twelve, the brass, in being 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 497 

wr-i^fhed in water, will have lost one-twelfth of its weight, while 
the gold will have lost only the eighteenth of its weight. Thus 
the shrewd mind of Archimedes was too fast for the goldsmith. 
He weighed the crown in air, and then took an equal weight of 
pure gold. When he weighed them both in water, he found that 
the crown was not near as heavy as the pure gold, because it had 
lost a greater proportion of its weight, on account of the alloy in 
it. By this means he found that much alloy was in the crown. 
It was proven so positively, that the poor goldsmith could not 
deny it 

Many persons suppose quicksilver to be the heaviest of metals; 
but gold is far heavier, and platina is heavier than gold. There is 
a mixture of three metals, I think it is lead, bismuth, and tin, 
which will melt at a less temperature than boiling water, and spoons 
that are made of it, will melt when put into a cup of tea, though 
any of the metals require two or three times the heat to melt them. 
If a piece of glass be melted, and let fall into cold water, it forms 
a small globe, with a little drop at one end. If that small end be 
knocked off, or any portion of it be made rough with a file, in a 
few minutes it will explode with the sound of a musket, and fall 
into an impalpable powder. It is called Prince Rupert's drop, and 
the effect, I have no doubt, is produced by electricity, that won- 
derful magic agent of nature. 

I had intended to speak of the wonders of the sciences of 
astronomy, of electricity, galvanism, magnetism, &c., but my limits 
will not permit, and, therefore, T shall only glance at those which 
offer themselves to my mind. When we think of the amazing 
extent of the universe, and the immense distances of those globes 
that twinkle on our eyes, our minds are filled with wonder at the 
sublimity of that power who created them, and set them in motion. 
Not more than a thousand stars can be seen by the eye at a time, 
on the clearest night, but the telescope has brought millions into 
view. It has been computed, that the nearest fixed star is twenty 
billions of n)iles from the earth, at the least, and that a ball travel- 
ing at the rate of five hundred miles an hour, would require four 
millions five hundred thousand years to come from one of them 
to the earth. It would require even light, which conies to us from 
the sun in little more than eight minutes, three years to traverse 
the distance. That the fixed stars are immensely distant, is proven 
by the fact, that though Dr. Hershell looked at them through his 
L'reat telescope magnifying six thousand times, they appeared no 
larger than to the naked eye. By the same magnifying power on 
63 



498 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

the moon, which is only two hundred and forty thousand miles 
from the earth, he could plainly see her mountains. That the 
fixed stars must be immensely large, and shine by their own light, 
is proven by the fact, that no body, shining by reflected light, 
could be seen at the distance they are. 

When we consider that every one of (he fixed stars is a sun, 
like ours, around which other systems of planets revolve, we are 
lost in astonishment at the Power that created them. 

The moon is to us the most interesting body in the heavens, the 
sun excepted, because, being the nearest, it appears the largest. 
That the moon and all the satellites, as well as the primary planets, 
are inhabited by some kind of beings, there is not a shadow of a 
doubt; for we cannot with reason suppose that all those immense 
bodies were made to shine merely as specks on this globe, when 
one of them, Jupiter, alone is twelve hundred times as large as 
the earth. 

The observations made on the moon, since the improvement of 
the telescope, go to prove that she is inhabited. She constantly 
attends the earth in her revolution round the sun; but, unlike the 
earth, she only revolves on her axis once during her circuit round 
the earth; consequently, one day and night to the people on the 
moon, is equal to twenty-nine and a half of our days. Owing to 
her revolving just once on her axis while going round the earth, 
but one side of her is seen by us. The diameter of the moon is 
only two thousand one hundred and eighty miles, while that of the 
earth is between seven and eight thousand. 

I will here make a digression, for the purpose of speaking of 
one circumstance which is understood by few persons, namely, 
why the calendar had to be altered from old style to new style; 
and why we have what is called Leap Year. The reason is this. 
The time that the earth requires to go round the sun, we call a 
year. — Well, the earth is three hundred and sixty-five days five 
hours and forty-nine minutes in going round the sun. Now, if the 
time were exact, there would be no difficulty; but as there are five 
hours and eleven minutes odd time, that time was lost, and in the 
course of centuries it amounted to a considerable period. This 
odd time was added, when the new style was made. In the course 
of time the style will have to be altered again, and instead of set- 
ing it forward, as before, it will have to be set back, because, in 
making the leap year, we now calculate that the earth is three 
hundred and sixty-five days and six hours in going round the sun, 
and as that six hours in every four years amount to one day, which 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARU. 499 

day, as February is the shortest month, we add to that month, 
every four years. But the reader will perceive that we are gaining a 
little time now, as the odd five hours and forty-nine minutes, in the 
earth's revolution, lack eleven minutes of being six hours; but, as 
the time of the earth's revolution is so uneven, it is calculated as 
well as it can be. In about three hundred years we shall be about 
one month too fast, and the world will have to be set back a little. 
However, we shall have no hand in the matter at that time, for we 
shall have "gone away." 

But to return to the moon. The earth shines to the people of 
the moon, with a disk, or face, thirteen times as large as that of 
the moon is to us. It must be a pleasant jaunt to the people on 
the side of the moon always turned from us, to come round and 
take a peep at our earth, which is the most splendid object in the 
heavens to them. The scenery of the moon is very sublime, the 
mountains being from a furlong to five miles in height. Dr. Her- 
schell, from observation, was satisfied that there is fire in the moon, 
as well as tremendous volcanoes. As yet no seas or bodies of 
water have been discovered on the moon, and though Shroeter 
declares she has an atmosphere, there has been discovered no 
evidence of snow, rain or clouds. 

I have no doubt, when the telescope shall have vastly increased 
in power, by perhaps the union of the microscopic powers with 
it, that the inhabitants of the moon will be brought into view, and 
that great question settled; but alas, we shall not be here to see 
the apes and man-bats of the moon. 

There is another great curiosity in science I desire to mention; 
but I am admonished that I have already overrun my limits. If 
the curiosities of science are well received by my readers, and 
they desire other dishes served up to them of still greater and 
more original curiosities of science, I shall occasionally give them 
a taste of the wonders of electricity, galvanism, and electro-mag- 
netism, with some perfectly original ideas on electricity as the 
grand agent of life, heat, motion, &c. 




500 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



No. II. 

Behold great Franklin, to whom pow'r is giv'n, 
To wield the dreadful thunderbolt of Heaven I 
Like the immortal Jove, he dares to rise, 
And seize the lightning leaping through the sUiesi ; 
Harmless he holds in frailest bonds a pow'r, 
That shakes the globe in tempest's awful hour; 
In silken chains, he leads along his path 
That mighty pow'r that rends the oak in wrath. 
And see bold Morse — far swifter than the wind — 
Bids it roll on the chariot of the mind ; 
No more are time and space on Nature's chart, — 
Man speaks to man, a thousand miles apart. 

\N my last essay it was stated, that Oxygen is one of tlie 
most combustible gasses in Nature. By what means the 
error occurred, I know not; but it is well known that 
oxygen instead of being one of the most combustible, is 
a great supporter of combustion, as may be seen when any thing 
is burnt in it; as for instance, a piece of iron wire. A small iron 
wire will burn in the flame of a candle, but when it is burnt in a 
jar of oxygen, or a stream of oxygen is directed upon it, it burns 
with far greater brilliance. One of the greatest degrees of heat 
that can be produced, is by a stream of oxygen and hydrogen 
gasses. Another by concave mirrors. Another by electricity. 

But my principal object in this essay, is to speak of electricity; 
and to give my own ideas concerning it. Electricity is not only 
one of the most curious, most wonderful agents of nature, but, in 
my humble opinion, it is the great, the grand agent, by which her 
wonderful works are carried on, or, I should say, her operations. 
The word Nature, which I use, the reader may read God ; for I 
use it as a mere symbol or synonym of that glorious Being, whose 
power and glory are every where visible, whether I see them in a 
plant or in a planet, in a worm or in a world. I see evidences of 
his wonderful workmanship in the brilliant rainbow, and the beau- 
tiful butterfly and flower — I see his glory in the beams of the sun, 
and hear his voice in the roar of the artillery of Heaven. 

It is my opinion, and the reader may take it for what it is worth, 
that electricity will yet be discovered to be the grand agent of 
nature, by which heat, light, motion, and life itself, are produced. 
Without some degree of heat there can be no motion; and with- 
out heat, there can be no light; and without heat and motion, 
there can be no life. I am aware that, according to a newly 
received doctrine in philosophy, some of the rays of the sun are 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 501 

said to be rays of heat alone, and others of light alone; but I do 
not believe a word of it. 

Well, if, according to the assertion I have made, light, motion 
and life, are dependent upon heat, in what direction are we to 
search for the origin of heat? Electricity is the cause of heat, 
light, motion, life; and life is the offspring of heat, and motion, 
for whatever has in it neither heat nor motion, has no life. I 
speak not of latent heat. 

Combustion is but little understood by philosophers, high as are 
their pretensions of having searched into the secret. That fire, or 
wood, or coal, or other matter in a state of combustion, is an elec- 
trical action, I have not the shadow of a doubt; and I have as 
little doubt that, when the science of electricity shall have become 
as thoroughly explored as some other sciences have been, it will 
be discovered to be the cause of combustion, or of the burning of 
a piece of wood, as well as of the chemical decomposition of sub- 
stances, and numerous other operations. 

Galvanism is generally treated as a separate science from that 
of electricity; but they are identically the same, differing not so 
much in the phenomena they produce, as in the modes by which 
they are brought into action. The mode of producing electricity, 
is more mechanical and less chemical than that by which galvan- 
ism is produced; but galvanism is nothing more or less than elec- 
tricity. But, says one, they appear in many respects different. 
Granted. But how different do many other things in nature 
appear? How different does combustion appear, when different 
bodies are being decomposed. And how different does light ap- 
pear, particularly in the direct and reflected rays of the sun? The 
chemical decomposition of metals is caused by electricity, as the 
decomposition of wood is in combustion ; and in the former, it 
shows itself in the character of galvanism. In the decomposition 
of zinc and copper, it reveals itself; but does not show itself in 
the decomposition of other metals so much, neither does it do so 
in the combustion of wood or coal; but nevertheless it is there, 
and it is the grand cause, producing at the same time, heat, light, 
motion; two of which are the constituents, and the other neces- 
sary to life. 

Magnetism, or attraction, is evidently one of the attributes of 
electricity; for wherever electricity is, there also is the magnetic 
or attractive property or power to be found. From a parity of 
reasoning, then, it is my belief, that the planets, yea, all creation, 
is moved by electricity, and had I the time and the tin requisite, I 



502 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

could construct a machine to exemplify the fact. In the first 
place, I would construct a large hollow globe of copper, to repre- 
sent the sun in the centre, which should be charged positively and 
powerfully with electricity. Around that, at different distances, 
should be gutters of glass, or some other insulating matter, for 
metallic balls to roll in, but so constructed, that when the ball 
should be attracted, it could not fly to the large copper ball. Now 
it is well known that when a body is acted on by two opposite 
forces, and is at liberty to move, it will move in a direction be- 
tween the two. A small ball, representing a planet, would be 
attracted by the large electrified ball in the centre, which would 
be the centripetal force; and being prevented, by the glass gutter, 
from flying in a straight line to the attracting ball, this prevention 
would represent the centrifugal force; and the ball would have no 
alternative, but to move round. In this way, different balls at dif- 
ferent distances from the attracting ball, would evidently move 
with different velocities; the nearest one moving rapidly, while 
the most distant one would move slowly; precisely as the planets 
in our solar system are known to do. 

But not only do I believe that the planets are moved by electri- 
city, but that all motion on the earth is produced by it; though, in 
many cases, it may be so concealed, that we may not be able to 
detect its agency. What are animals, what is man himself, proud 
as he is of "a little brief authority," but electrical machines, which 
are constantly acting or being acted on? Man is the most com- 
plete electro-magnetic telegraph in the world. His nerves are the 
wires, and his brain is the office where the intelligence is received. 
If a pin pierce the toe, electrical action takes place, and the intel- 
ligence is instantly transmitted along the nerves, which are the 
wires, to the brain, which is the office; and there the mind, which 
is the officer of the telegraph, is informed that a pin has been 
stuck in the toe. So, when we feel any thing, the intelligence or 
sensation is carried by the nerves to the brain. When we look at 
a house or a tree, a picture is formed in the eye, which picture is 
the sio-nal given, which conveys along the optic nerve to the brain, 
a description of the object looked at. In the first place, the rays 
of light, from the object to the eye, are the telegraphic wires 
which convey intelligence or a picture of the object to the eye, 
and then the optic nerve is the wire which carries the intelligence 
or a picture of the object to the principal office, the brain. So, 
when we hear a bell, the intelligence is conveyed to the grand 
office, the brain, by two connected telegraphs. When the bell is 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BAUD. •'^OS 

struck and quivers or vibrates, that quivering or vibration is com- 
municated to tlie air, which goes off in little waves to the ear, ajid 
these waves of the air are the wires which convey intelligence to 
the office in the ear, and from thence to the grand office, the 
brain, it is communicated along the wire, the auditory nerve. 
Man is a perfect telegraph, because a knowledge of the subject is 
not communicated by imperfect signs or symbols; but a perfect 
fac~simile is transmitted, as, for instance, in the eye ; the image 
is so like the object, that it seems to be the object itself. 

Now what but electricity could transmit intelligence from the 
toe to the brain in an instant? Electricity produces light and 
heat, and moves with the greatest velocity known. It produces 
sound, odor, taste, and, in short, all that constitute the five senses 
of man. That all solid bodies are held together, as well as thrown 
asunder, by electricity, I have not a doubt; for solid bodies may 
be diffused into vapor by jjassing electricity thr(»ugh them. To 
effect this, three strips of window-glass are necessary, three 
inches long and one wide. Two narrow strips of gold-leaf should 
be placed between them, so that the ends of the gold-leaf may 
project a little beyond the glass. Then pass a heavy charge, from 
a large Leyden jar, through the gold, brass or copper leaf, and the 
electricity will melt ihe leaf, and drive it into the surface of the 
glass. The metal is certainly vajjorized; for the stain is found in 
the pores of the glass. 

Dr. Priestly proved that electricity expands bodies. He passed 
a stream of the fluid through a thermometer tube, filled with mer- 
cury, and it was so much expanded, that the glass was broken. 

From the effect that Galvanism has on the dead body, when 
bathed in warm water and rendered pliable, I have imbibed the 
idea that muscular motion is produced by electrical action. For 
a long time, Medical Societies offered premiums to any anatomist 
who should discover a passage in the nerves, through which, it was 
imagined, that the fiuid of sensation passed, as water passes 
through a tube. But no fluid, save the electric, could be made to 
pass from the toe to the brain in the time required for the trans- 
mission of sensation. The action of Galvanic Electricity on the 
dead body is a terrific exhibition, and causes even those who have 
once seen it, to start with a shudder. The dead body is soaked 
in warm water, until the muscles and joints became pliable: in- 
cisions are made in those parts which it is desired to move, and 
the wires of a galvanic battery are brought in contact; by which 
means the dead man may be made to perform all the motions of 



504 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

a living one, save those of rising on the feet and walking. I have 
seen one, lying on a table, made to rise up in a sitting posture; 
throw up his arms ; open his eyes, mouth, and even " grin a ghastly 
smile." I have seen him made to turn his head; nod assent, and 
kick with considerable force. All this, to my mind, points to 
electricity as the cause of motion in the muscles of a living man. 
If sensation be conveyed to the brain through the nerves by means 
of electricity, and that it is so, I have not a doubt; is it not rea- 
sonable to believe that the muscles move by the same power? I 
have shown heat, motion, light, sound, taste, smell and attraction, 
all to be the properties of, or proceeding from, electricity. 

If this hypothesis be admitted, animal magnetism is accounted 
for at once, or, at least, is rendered rational; for, if man be an 
electrical machine, or, in other words, if electricity be the prime 
mover of the muscles, it is plain that magnetism may be easily 
brought into action, inasmuch as the one is the property of the other. 

Electricity and Magnetism, in time past, were considered, by 
philosophers, as two distinct or independent properties of powers; 
but in this age of scientific discovery, philosophers have learned 
the fact, that they are the same, or, in other words, that Magnetism 
is one of the attributes or properties of electricity, as elasticity is 
one of the properties of steel. 

Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism, as it is called, from Mesmer, 
the discoverer, is produced by friction; and so is electricity, as 
well as the property of magnetism in a metal. It is no more un- 
reasonable that magnetism should be produced by friction on the 
flesh, than it should be by friction on metal. The blacksmith, 
when drilling the tire of a cart-wheel, produces magnetism, by 
the friction of the drill, and this is perceived in the particles of 
the metal clinging to each other. If an iron poker, which has 
been long used in the fire, be placed in the magnetic perpendicular 
between the knees, that is a little inclined from the real perpen- 
dicular, and the blade of a penknife be rubbed upwards repeatedly 
against it, on both sides, the blade, in a few minutes, will acquire 
the magnetic property sufficient to raise a needle or other small 
pieces of iron or steel. Any one can try this experiment to his 
own satisfaction; and is it not as reasonable to suppose that the 
friction of flesh will produce a somewhat similar magnetic effect? 
I do not vouch for all that is said of animal magnetism; but I do 
not doubt that magnetism may be produced as aforesaid. 

Many persons suppose the sun to be a burning body, but it 
is not so. Light is one of the effects of electricity, and a dis- 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 505 

tinguished philosopher has recently discovered that the violet rays 
of the Solar spectrum, that is, the violet rays produced when light 
is refracted by a prism, when condensed by a convexed glass, and 
caused to pass along a piece of steel, will communicate to it the 
magnetic power. 

I consider, then, that the rays of light, in passing from the great 
fountain of electricity, the sun, produce, by their friction in passing 
through the atmosphere, another property of electricity, called 
caloric or heat. I consider the sun as a vast electrical body, and, 
as has been observed, electricity has the power of producing light, 
heat, motion. All these may be seen in action, in discharging 
the electricity contained in a Leyden jar. It is by its inconceivable 
velocity, that it rends to atoms the mighty monarch of the moun- 
tain, the oak ; for, as observed in my last essay, velocity makes up 
for the want of weight, hardness and force. If a body weighing 
ten pounds, move with twice the velocity of another weighing 
twenty pounds, it will have an equal force. 

Electricity is made apparent by friction or by rubbing a body; 
and so is fire or combustion. When a cylinder of glass is turned 
against a pad, electricity is produced, and with it comes light, 
heat and motion. Heat may be apparent without light, and so 
may motion ; but when they are all apparent, electricity is apparent; 
hence it seems that they are the different properties of electricity, 
and if that be true, electricity is the cause of the motion of the 
planets, and of the muscles of man, yea, of life itself; for life 
cannot be, without heat and motion. 

I have no doubt, as I have before observed, that electricity will 
yet be discovered to be the grand cause of all the phenomena or 
operations of nature. That it is the cause of weight, in bodies, 
appears from the fact, that weight is nothing more or less than the 
force by which a body is attracted to the centre of the earth, and 
philosophers are all now satisfied that magnetism or attraction is 
one of the properties of electricity, instead of being an indepen- 
dent power, as it was believed to be in time past. 

On the same principle, it must be the cause of chemical attrac- 
tion or the attraction of cohesion: that power by which the parti- 
cles of a body are held together. Though the term " attraction 
of cohesion " is used, in contradistinction to that of attraction of 
gravitation, for the sake of perspicuity, yet they are the same; they 
are resolvable into the same magnetism or attraction ; they are 
the one property of electricity. 
64 



506 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

All bodies in the universe, that we know any thing of, have in 
them a greater or less share of electricity; and it is by this un- 
equal distribution that the phenomena of nature are produced. 
If a body has only its usual share, no sensible effects are pro- 
duced; but when it becomes possessed of more or less than its 
usual share, certain phenomena take place; light, heat, motion, 
sound, odor and attraction or repulsion. There are said to be two 
kinds of electricity, the positive and the negative; but they are 
only different modifications of the same general principle. 

The velocity of electricity is beyond comprehension. Were ten 
thousand men electrified in a row, there could not be perceived 
any elapse of time between the leaping of the first and last man. 
From some experiments that have been made with the wire of the 
electro-magnetic telegraph, it appears that in a distance of forty 
miles, no perceptible elapse of time could be observed between 
the giving and the reception of the signal. 

The term electro-magnetic telegraph is superfluous; for, as I 
have shown, magnetism is none other than one of the attributes 
of electricity; therefore, the term electric telegraph would be 
amply adequate to express the idea. 

So vast a heat may be produced by electricity, that not only 
gunpowder is set on fire, and charcoal is made to burn with a bril- 
liant and beautiful white flame, but metals have been melted and 
set on fire; water decomposed into oxygen and hydrogen; dia- 
mond, charcoal and black-lead dispersed as if evaporated; platina, 
the heaviest and the hardest of all metals, has been melted like 
tallow in the fire; and quartz, sapphire, lime, magnesia, and some 
of the most firm bodies in nature, have been melted. The heat of 
electricity is tremendous. 

That strange fluid, too, of the nature of which we yet know so 
little, operates in a thousand ways, every day, before our eyes, 
without our knowing the cause. It is the cause that porter has a 
more agreeable taste when drunk out of a pewter mug, than from 
a glass vessel. It is the cause that a silver spoon is discolored, 
when used in eating eggs; it is the cause that a limb will be con- 
vulsed under the knife of the surgeon, in amputation ; it is the 
cause that a glass tumbler, that has been cooled suddenly in mak- 
ing, will break, if you drop a small piece of flint into it, and hence 
the reason that all glass vessels must be annealed or softened be- 
fore they are used ; it is the cause why pure mercury is oxydized 
when amalgamated with tin; it is the cause why vessels of metal, 
which are soldered, so soon tarnish where they are joined together; 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 507 

and it is the cause why the copper on the bottom of ships, when 
put on with iron nails, so soon corrodes at the places of contact. 
The reason that electricity has these effects is, that a galvanic 
circle is formed, as in the Galvanic Battery. 

In speaking of electricity, Mr. Dick says, "we have reason to 
believe, that, in combination with the discoveries which modern 
chemistry is daily unfolding, the agencies of this fluid will enable 
us to carry the arts forward towards perfection, and to trace the 
secret causes of some of the sublimest phenomena in nature." 

When the great Franklin took hold of the science of electricity, 
and identified it with the lightnings of Heaven, very little was 
known concerning it. What must have been his feelings, when 
he tried the experiment of drawing down the lightning, and found 
that he had succeeded ? He took the first idea of doing so, from 
seeing a boy flying a kite. And how simple was the apparatus he 
made for drawing down the lightning of Heaven and proving that 
it was the same as electricity? It was nothing more than a large 
silk handkerchief fastened over two cross sticks. In June, 1752, 
he saw a cloud rising, and, with his kite, he took his way to a 
field, in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, in which there was a 
shed, taking no one with him but his son, and communicating his 
intention to no one, well knowing the proneness of the world to 
laugh at one who makes an unsuccessful experiment, as a dreamer. 

He raised the kite; fastened a key to the lower end of the 
hempen cord; and, having insulated it by fastening it to a post by 
means of a silk string, he stood under the shed and calmly awaited 
the result. For some time he could see no evidence of electricity. 
A cloud, which he supposed to be charged with the fluid, had 
passed over, and yet his kite showed no signs of electricity. After 
a while, however, at the moment when he was despairing, and 
thinking of giving the matter up and going home, he saw the loose 
particles of the hempen cord, rise and stand out, as they will repel 
each other when charged with electricity. The next moment he 
presented his knuckle to the key, and, to his great joy, drew forth 
the spark, his hopes were realized ; the discovery was made, and 
the fact was proven, that electricity and lightning are the same. 
He declared, afterwards, that his emotions were so great, at hav- 
ing made a discovery which would render his name illustrious, that 
he breathed a deep sigh, and felt as if he could have willingly died 
at that moment. 

He afterwards brought down the lightning into his own house, 
and performed all the experiments that are usually performed with 



508 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

the electrical machine. The above experiment led him to the plan 
of protecting buildings by means of lightning rods. 

But his great discovery did not at first excite much attention in 
England; for it is said, that when a paper on the similarity of light- 
ning and electricity was read before the Royal Society, the matter 
was ridiculed; but when the celebrated naturalist, Buffon, trans- 
lated and published it in Paris, it caused astonishment throughout 
Europe. The Royal Society was thus compelled to pay Franklin 
the homage which they had enviously withheld; "and soon," says 
he, " they made me more than amends for the slight with which they 
had before treated me. Without my having made any application 
for that honor, they chose me a member, and voted that I should 
be excused the customary payments, which would have amounted 
to twenty-five guineas, and ever since have given me their trans- 
actions gratis. They also presented me with the gold medal of 
Sir Godfrey Copley for the year 1753, the delivery of which was 
accompanied with a very handsome speech of the president, Lord 
Macklesfield, wherein I was highly honored." 

I have thus detailed the experiment of that truly great man, 
Benjamin Franklin, for the purpose of noting the period at which 
we may say of electricity that it assumed the form of a science, 
for previous to that time, all the knowledge on the subject, con- 
sisted of disjointed fragments. Like steam, electricity is even 
now in its infancy. Like chemistry, more has been discovered in 
it during the last liundred years, than ever was known before. To 
Dr. Franklin we are indebted for the very form of a science it has 
assumed ; for a knowledge of its two states, and its identity with 
lightning. 

To reiterate what I have said, it is my opinion that the sun 
is the great fountain of electricity — the great galvanic battery 
which moves and maintains in their orbits all the planets which 
belong to our Solar System. The mighty influence of this magni- 
ficent galvanic battery is felt by the planets, not only collectively, 
but individually; and not only by the whole body of each and 
every planet; but by every particle, however small, that enters 
into the composition of a planet. Mr. Naff, the auctioneer of 
this city, when speaking to me of a vacuum, the other day, ob- 
served that a vacuum could not be produced without the presence 
of heat in some way; and so I may say of electricity and its 
effects. It pervades all bodies, more or less, and acts upon all, in 
sooie manner. Motion has its origin in the unequal distribu- 
tion of electricity, If it suddenly pass from a body, that has more 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 509 

than its share, into one that has less, motion is produced, and also, 
light, heat, sound, odor, he. 

I have said that every particle of every planet is operated on by 
the electricity coming from the galvanic battery, the sun; yea it 
is the case throughout all created bodies, which are scattered 
through the illimitable regions of space. And not only does that 
electricity operate from the sun on the planets; but, by reflection, 
from the planets on one another reciprocally, and so nice is this 
mutual action and reaction, that not a pebble can be moved on the 
sea-shore, nay, not a flower, or even a feather, can be moved from 
the spot it occupies, without the efl^ect being felt by every planet, 
however distant, in the solar system. True, the eflfect is infinitesi- 
mal ; yet, nevertheless, it is felt: and now, when I move this paper 
on my desk, the effect is felt by Jupiter, Saturn, Herschell, and, 
all the planets. This may seem strange, but it is so; and he who 
is accustomed to experiment with electricity, and to witness its 
wonderful operations, so inconceivably powerful and rapid, will 
not be at a loss to perceive how it may operate thus. 

In these modern times of improvement and discovery, when 
scientific instruments have been brought almost to perfection, it 
has been discovered, to a nicety, as well as certainty, that this 
mutual action and reaction of the planets on one another does 
take place. It is no longer a matter of conjecture or of doubt 
but of certainty, that the planets are not only acted upon by the 
sun, but that they act upon one another: and if the whole body 
of the planet Venus, Mars, or Mercury, has an influence on the 
motion of our earth, then it follows, a priori, that a part must 
have a corresponding effect. Therefore a pebble removed from 
its place on our globe, must, in a degree, afl^ect not only the whole 
planet Venus or Mars, but every planet that belongs to our system. 

Owing to my want of tools, I am unable to illustrate the subjects 
of these essays with diagrams. If I had a little room for a work 
shop, I would make engravings, by which I could elucidate and 
illustrate, much better, the subject of science, of which I write. 

In the present improved state of scientific instruments, it has 
been observed, that the planets, in their course round the sun do 
not describe an exact circle, oval or elliptic course; but move in 
and out of the direct oval line. For the want of a diaaram I fear 
that it will be difficult to convey to the reader's mind a lucid idea 
of what I mean; bnt I will endeavor to elucidate it by a vulo-ar 
similitude. Suppose yon describe upon the floor, with a pair of 
compasses or dividers ten feet long, a large oval line, meeting at 



610 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

he ends, and you place a drunken man on it to walk round. He 
will inevitably go in and out of the line, in a zig-zag direction ; 
and it is in such a zig-zag direction that the planets move, which 
variable or irregular motion is caused by the action of the other 
planets on one of their number. 

The action of the planets on one another, was long since known ; 
for Dr. Halley, in calculating the time of the appearance of the 
great comet in 1680, was under the necessity of calculating the 
effect which Jupiter would have on it, and of allowing so much 
time for the retarding influence of that planet. 

But I am warned that I am approaching the limits assigned me, 
and must conclude. I am compelled to write in haste, and many 
errors will inevitably occur, which the reader must correct. I have 
here given my own notions concerning our solar system, and reli- 
giously believe that electricity is the grand moving cause of all 
things. That is, it is the great agent of God, in giving light, life, 
motion ; and that, in our system, the sun is our grand galvanic bat- 
tery, which operates on all. Knowing what little we do of the na- 
ture of electricity, we can readily see that there is no agent, which 
in the hand of God, could so readily and rapidly obey his mighty 
command. 



1 ^ntt'0 Carrft. 

How pleasant 'tis to be a poet, 

Especially if you don't know it; 

To rhyme on sentimental themes, 

And analyze a lover's dreams. 

The ladies, when they chance to meet 

The ragged rhymer in the street, 

Will turn and cry out — "Did you know it? 

There goes the sentimental poet." 

•'Law! Ma, set joking now apart, 

He never wrote the Broken Heart! 

That's not the celebrated Uzzard; 

He looks more like a turkey-buzzard." 

"That is the man," returns Mamma, 

"If you don't think so, ask your Pa; 

You must not judge men by their looks, 

No more than you would birds or books; 

The sweetest birds that grace the heathers, 

Are seldom clothed in flashy feathers; 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 511 

Men that the greatest talents bless, 

Are rarely fond of dandy dress; 

You always find that men of sense, 

To pomp and pride have no pretence; 

They stand upon their merit given, 

Not by the tailor, but by heaven; 

The purse-proud fool may boast his gains, 

The booby, with an ounce of brains, 

May dash with curricle and cash. 

And to his ponies lend the lash; 

The gaudy coxcomb, in your gaze. 

In borrowed plumes, may brightly blaze, 

But still throughout the word you'll find, 

That man is measured by the mind. 

Of poets never judge, or scholars. 

By absence of fine dress or dollars." 

You're right. Mamma, I said, I know it — 

I'll introduce you to the poet; 

This Uzzard is my worthy friend; 

To Broomstick street our steps we'll bend; 

I'm sure we there will cage the parrot; 

I'll lead you, ladies, to his garret. 

Up a dark, dirty stairway, long. 

We went to see the son of song; 

And there he was like some big bug, 

Laid out upon a ragged rug; 

As independent as a sawyer. 

And with a tongue hke any lawyer; 

He seemed enraptured with his life, 

And only wished he had a wife. 

To write off manuscripts, and mend 

His old clothes, given by a friend; 

Upon that rug, spread on the floor, 

He'd taken many a hearty snore; 

And wished, as oft that rug he spread, 

That all men had as good a bed; 

One meal a day alone he bore. 

The reason was he had no more; 

His hat was made in eighteen thirty, 

His ragged pantaloons were dirty; 

His waistcoat, of all colors made. 

Was hung up for a window shade. 

His coat at first was made of green, 

In eighteen hundred and seventeen, 

But now 'twas hard to tell, I ween. 

Which was the color, or the nap, 

'Twas like a many colored map; 

One shirt was all the poet shed. 

And when 'twas washed he went to bed: 

For stockings he ne'er spent a penny, 

The reason was, he hadn't any; 



ien, ■^ 



512 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

His bursted boots had ne'er been blacked; 

A three leg'd stool, a tumbler cracked, 

A broken pitcher and a pail, 

A one-eyed cat without a tail, 

A corn-cob pipe, an old horn spoon, 

A jackleg knife and tin spittoon. 

Composed his all that I could scan. 

And yet he was a happy man! 

"Well," said Mamma, "I think you lead 

A pleasant life." "I do, indeed — 

I've always led a genteel life, 

And had I now a handsome wife. 

To love me and be my physician. 

There's nought could better my condition." 

"In fame," said Miss, "there must be bliss, 

To make a man endure all this." 

"That's not the cause," replied Mamma, 

"If you don't think so, ask your Pa; 

Contentment is the cause — we find 

True happiness dwells in the mind." 

Ladies, said I, you've heard the parrot. 

And you have seen a poet's garret. 



/anrq. 



Pair fancy dwells 

In sylvan cells. 
Where mountain monarchs grow; 

And wild winds rave 

O'er the dark blue wave, 
And the crystal cascades flow. 

And in those cells 

On silver bells. 
She rings her revelry; 

And oft with fire. 

On the Lydian lyre, 
She wakens her minstrelsy. 

In golden groves. 

With laughing loves, 
On silver slippers she 

In silence strays, 

At the rocks to gaze. 
And surge of the sounding sea. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 513 

On her fair cheek, 

Love's liUes meek, 
And pink peach blossoms bloom; 

There love's bright brush 

Gives the beauteous blusli. 
And care finds a flowery tomb. 

Her crowded crown 

Rolls curling down 
On her white breast below, 

Like grapes of gold, 

In a cluster rolled. 
On beds of the softest snow. 

When morning breaks 

O'er lucid lakes, 
Along the surf she strays. 

And loves her shade 

In the deep displayed, 
As over she bends to gaze. 

In Echo's caves, 

Where dashing waves 
Foam o'er the ragged rocks, 

She tears her heiir 

In the lightning's glare. 
And the thunder's roarins: mocks. 



THE SPECTATOR IS STANDING AT THE LITTLE WINDOW. 

A DASHING damsel, in rich robes arrayed, 

At the window her blooming face displayed, 

"A letter, sir?" ««What name.'" said Mr. Boon, 

"Miss Julia Jackson Johnson Clay Calhoun." 

"There's none, fair Miss," — the words were scarcely spoken, 

Ere she cried out, "Oh! me! my heart is broken; 

My lover borrowed all the cash I had. 

He's run away — wont write — and I'll go mad." 

Stand by, ye boys, and let the lady pass, 

Her heart breaks easier than her looking-glass. 

Then Cuffee came, a dingy dandy bright. 

With lips an inch thick, and with eyes of white; 

"A letta, sah.'" "What name.'" is heard again, 

"From Massa Sambo to Miss Dinah Jane, 

65 



514 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

She want to hear from Noo Yawk, dat is all, 

De latest fashioned bustle for de ball." 

•'There's none for you, clear out," the clerk replied; 

And then a merchant came, inquired and sighed, 

The letter stated that the man he trusted. 

Had sold his goods, gone off, and somewhere busted; 

Another one — the letters to him handed. 

His ship and cargo had been lost and stranded; 

His cheek is blanched, he strikes his panting breast, 

A ruin'd man — your fancy paints the rest. 

Up stepped a booby, right before his betters, 

•'Sir, Mr. What d'ye call him wants his letters." 

"And who the mischief's he?" the clerk inquires, 

"I have forgot," he cries, and then retires. 

Then came a half-starved poet there to bicker, 

And in his head was running love tind liquor; 

He tore the letter open, and, 'twas funny. 

He nearly fainted at the sight of money; 

He hadn't seen a penny in a week, 

It cured his sore eyes, but he couldn't speak; 

He ran home to his garret and his junk — 

The rhyming rascal for a month was drunk; 

Just like a worm-fence did he walk, and stutter, 

Hie jacet, was the next thing, in the gutter. 

Now came an aged lady to that place, — 
A deep anxiety was in her face; 
She was a mother, oh ! how dear that name ? 
Dearer to me than all the feasts of fame. 
She was a mother — yes, she had a son, 
For whose dear sake her heart had been undone; 
He was a wild youth — always most beloved — 
And yet she knew not where her son had roved; 
He left her when a lad, with many tears; 
She had not seen him in six weary years. 
"This, Madam," said the clerk, "will soon revefd!"- 
She seized the letter — 'twas a sable seal; 
She gasped for breath, then tore the seal apart. 
While sorrow preyed upon a parent's heart: 
I saw the tear that eloquently speaks. 
Steal silently adown her aged cheeks; 
Her bosom heaved, as she the letter read. 
For oh! her son, her much loved son, was dead! 
Far in a foreign land her hope, her pride. 
Within a stranger's arms, had drooped and died; 
No mother's hand his dying couch had spread, 
No mother's form was seen around his bed; 
Tin ere is no bosom like a mother's known. 
There is no solace like her sweet soft tone; 
There is no place, where'er our feet may roam, 
Where we can die so calmly as at home. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 615 

When Death's dread angel shall his dark wings wave, 

And I am sinking to the sombre grave, 

'Twill silence all affliction's fierce alarms, 

To breathe my life out in my mother's arms; 

There let me suffer, let my last sigh there, 

Be breathed to heaven, and her in silent prayer; 

Let one fair hand, whose heart once broke its vow, 

Bind faded garlands round my pale cold brow: 

Oh! let one form, beloved thro' lingering years, 

Bend o'er my toml) and shed affliction's tears. 



inUvB Coming, 



Winter's coming! Winter's coming! 

Howling o'er the hills in wrath; 
Buds and blossoms now are blooming, 

Soon to perish in his path. 
See the Storm -King now advances, 

Whirlwinds wheel his crystal car; 
Hark! the tempest round him dances 

Down the dark'ning sky afar. 

Winter's coming! Winter's coming! 

See a hundred hills are white; 
Flow 'rets are no longer blooming, 

Groves no longer glad the sight. 
Summer's flying! Summer's flying! 

On her silver sandals, see 
Her footsteps, where her flowers are dying, 

And the leaves lie 'neath the tree. 

Winter's roaring! Winter's roaring! 

Hear him thro' the forest groan! 
Stormy floods now fast are pouring, 

Wild winds round the building moan ! 
Mai-k the sea-boy on the ocean. 

Riding o'er the sounding surge, 
Bend the knee in wild devotion, 

While the sea-gods sing his dirge. 

Winter's coming! Winter's coming! 

Rouse the bright fire in the hall; 
Smiling beauty now is blooming. 

Blushing at the bridal ball. 



516 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Tho' are fading nature's flowers, 
On the bosom of the earth; 

Fairer flowers, blooming bowers, 
Beauty's bosom now gives birth. 

Winter's coming! Winter's coming! 

But he soon shall pass away; 
Spring again, with flow 'rets blooming, 

Soon shall grace the gardens gay: 
Thus the heart that pines in sorrow, 

In Hfe's winter sinks and dies, 
But the spring that breaks to-morrow. 

Bids it live beyond the skies. 



Did you not hear the wail on Potomac's green shore, 
Where the weapons of death the proud warriors wore; 
'Twas the wail of the genius of freedom and fame. 
She grieves for the victims of error and shame. 

How long shall she weep o'er the trophies of pride? 
How long shall false honor her wisdom deride? 
How long shall the heart of humanity bleed, 
O'er the sin and the shame of the horrible deed? 

O! let not the groan of the duellist's grief 
Ever break on the slumber of Vernon's brave chief; 
Blow ye winds of the west to the murderous clime. 
Where Hoboken shall mingle her horrors of crime. 

O'er the tomb of Decatur pale pity still weeps, 
And the wild willow waves where the warrior sleeps; 
To the tomb of sage Hamilton many repair. 
While Burr still remains but the ghost of despair. 

But think not that sorrow shall weep for thy lot, 
Thou shall die as a duellist — like him forgot; 
O'er thy grave shall the raven oft utter his scream. 
And the lightnings of heaven in terror shall gleam. 

There the dirge of the duellist horror shall sing. 
And the vault with the wail of the widow shall ring; 
While the arm that oflTended shall moulder away, 
And the dust of the duellist mingle with clay. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 517 

When the blood of the brave for the nation is shed, 
Fame hallows his mem'ry and honors the dead; 
But the duellist's doom, tho' from death yet exempt, 
Shall be his friend's scorn, and his country's contempt. 



Jfiemon] nf lemtnr. 



Fair Genius of Columbia weep. 
Where thy loved hero's ashes sleep; 
Plant on his tomb the lily fair, 
For virtue, valor, slumber there ! 
O! let oblivion's vale now hide. 
One error of ungrateful pride; 
O! wash pollution's stain away. 
The mark of that inglorious day ! 
Columbia shed thy grateful tear. 
O'er this loved son to freedom dear, 
Let not his deeds of conquest won, 
Be shrouded from that genial sun 
That beamed with radiance on his fame, 
And graced Decatur's glorious name. 
O ! bid the tear of sorrow flow; 
The hero sleeps, the turf below ! 

When wildly blew the trump of war, 
Decatur on the flaming car 
Of carnage, sought the direful fight, 
And bravely claimed his country's right: 
Yea! valor mantled on his brow 
And victory gave her promised vow; 
Columbia smiled on freedom's son. 
For battles fought, for victory won. 

Come, lovely maidens, strew your flowers, 
Plucked from the sweet Arcadian bowers; 
And chaunt your song of sorrow o'er, 
Your loved Decatur is no more ! 
The death-bell rang its solemn knell, 
The hero fought, the hero fell; 
Yet still his name, to memory dear. 
Shall claim soft pity's falling tear. 



518 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



t %imn^t. 



The fbllowing lines were written on a tradition of an Indian's revenge for his 
murdered family. 

The Indian stood in stately pride, 
His eye-balls rolling wild and wide, 
And glaring on his prostrate foe, 
Writhing beneath the expected blow, 
His teeth were clenched, his nostrils wide. 
And ever and anon he cried, 
"My father, wife and children died 

By thee, thou cruel one; 
My cherished hopes of years are o'er. 
My friends are bleeding on the shore. 
Thy hands are reeking with their gore, 

And I am all undone. 

"And shall they unavenged still sleep. 
And I still linger there to weep? 
Nay, nay, I swear by sea and land. 
The hour of vengeance is at hand; 
Thou'st robbed me of a father, wife. 
And children. What to me is life? 
A desert wild, a waste of years, 
A scene of trouble and of tears; 
My children, slain by thy white hand, 
Are waiting in yon distant land: 
I come, I come, with vengeance dread; 
White man, I go when thou art dead." 

He said, and seized his foe. 
Rushing upon the rocky height, 
That overhung the abyss of night, 
Where high he held the quivering form. 
Above the cataract of storm. 
And sung the death -song wild and high. 
With yell that echoed through the sky. 

Then with him plunged below: 
And long, when they had disappeared, 
From echoing caves and rocks were heard, 
The shrill and solemn sounding word, 

"I come, I come." 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 519 



WHERE is real pleasure found ! 

Is it amid the giddy gay? 
Or is it in the midnight round, 

Where dissipation holds her sway? 
Or is it on the couch of ease, 

Where fairy phantom's fill the brain? 
Or is it in the crowd to please, 

Where tip-toe music leads the train ? 

Can halls of mirth impart the charm, 

So often sought, but sought in vain r 
Can friendship's touch of feeling warm, 

Or proffered hoards of shining gain ? 
Can fame impearl the genial prize, 

Or diadems absorb the ray ? 
Or does it flow from beauty's eyes? 

Or bloom in flowery fields of May ? 

Say, does it dwell in lonesome caves? 

Or mantle on the gloom of night? 
Or where the smiling Naiad laves. 

In rippling streams of silvery light? 
Can it be found where past'ral maids, 

Sweep gently o'er the dewy lawn? 
Or when the evening landscape fades? 

Or when Aurora gilds the dawn? 

Ah no ! Then does it grace the court, 

Where grandeur holds the reins of state? 
Does it attend a prince's sport? 

Or hoary king's proud breast elate? 
Ah ! is it found within the field. 

Where valor strews, in death, the ground; 
Where shield to lance, and lance to shield, 

Oppose in fatal conflict round? 

The charm cannot be found in these. 

It dwells not in a palace waUs; 
Nor on the downy couch of ease. 

Nor 'neath the roof of mirthful halls; 
Nor is it in the flowery field. 

Nor hoards of gold, or battle's fray; 
It reeks not of the lance or shield; — 

It reeks not of the giddy gay. 



520 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

The glorious charm resides in heaven, 

It emanates below the skies; 
Prom Siloa's fount, to man is given, 

The balm that wipes his anguished eyes ! 
O this is real pleasure known 

Unto the heart that's born again; 
From heaven to man the vision's shown, 

'Twas felt when God's dear Son was slain. 



^rih. 



I WENT into the hall of mirth, 

Amid the great and gay. 
Where splendor that seemed not of earth, 

Illumed with radiant ray; 
And there amid the mirthful band, 

(None dare the mandate chide,) 
I saw a form that gave command, 

'Twas haughty, bloated Pride. 

I went into the house of one 

Who scorned whate'er was gay, 
No mirrors there shone like the sun, 

In artificial day; 
His heart no grandeur ever knew. 

For splendor never sighed ! 
But lo! to my astonished view. 

Up rose the demon Pride. 

I went into the humble hut 

Where simple nature smiled. 
Whose lowly door was never shut. 

To fortune's wandering child; 
And there, tho' greatness never strayed, 

And wealth was never known, 
Yet there the sceptre too was swayed 

By Pride upon her throne. 

I turned me from the scene and said, 

Sure pride possesses all; 
I've found her in the lowly shed. 

And in the lofty hall! 
"Ah, yes," in rags, a beggar cried, 

" I once was governed too. 
But kind religion killed my pride, 

I'm proud in telling you." 



M£MIir®(D), 

Cljf Indian ^tratg 0! t|e §ran^gtok, 



AND 



WILD HARRY, OF WILMINGTON. 




T was about the close of the seventeenth cen- 
|tury, when the dawn of civilization was just 
beginning to break on the green and glorious 
shores of Delaware — when the adventurous feet 
lof the Dutchman, Swede, and Englishman were 
'pushing into the wild recesses of our forests, 
that this narrative of Indian life and love com- 
mences. The wild and rocky shores of the 
beautiful and romantic Brandywine then swarmed 
with the dusky forms of the children of the forest, 
and the terrible war-whoop and yell rung and 
reverberated along those rugged banks, where 
the beautiful forms of female elegance and refine- 
ment now wander. The Brandywine was then 
untouched by the gigantic hand of Art, and the 
busy wheel of industry was unheard amid those 
sublime solitudes of nature. No white sail of commerce was 
seen bending in beauty to the breeze, over the waveless waters in 
which the Indian hunter laved his manly limbs, and paddled his 
bark canoe. In those interminable forests that overshadowed the 
shores of the Brandywine, the wigwams of the savages were scat- 
tered here and there; and often as the moonlight slept upon the 
waters rippling over their rocky bed, did the dusky damsels of the 
forest meet their lovers among those rocks, which have long since 
been removed by the perseverance of the pale faces. 

Here, in those beautiful solitudes and recesses, the Indians for 
ages had lived and loved and passed away at the call of the Great 
66 



522 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Spirit; till the white man came, as the serpent entered the garden 
of Eden, sweeping from their eyes the mist that had enveloped 
them, and opening to them the wondrous light of knowledge and 
civilization. But the poor children of the forest imbibed his vices, 
not his virtues; and the curse of ardent spirits still rests upon that 
unfortunate race, the wrongs of which unfold a tale of ruin, melan- 
choly to the heart of humanity. 

Where are now the once powerful tribes that swarmed amid 
the forests of Delaware, and battled and bled on the banks of the 
Brandy wine? They have dwindled away to a handful, and have 
wandered far away from the scenes where their council-fires blazed, 
and they met in the spirit stirring war-dance. The arm that was 
once powerful, is now paralyzed; for on the day that the keel of 
Lord de la War touched these shores, the grave of Indian glory 
was opened, and the knell of the race rung through these woods. 
The day of their mighty deeds is past, and no more shall their 
dusky forms glide among the embowered groves of the Brandy- 
wine. 

But to the story. Manitoo, the beauty of the Brandywine, was 
a member of the Delaware Tribe. Her father had been killed in 
battle, and she became the adopted daughter of the proud, imperi- 
ous chief, named (Jndine; who, in his youth, had been called the 
swiftest hunter and most daring warrior of the tribe. — Undine had 
never been known to return from battle without a score of scalps 
and other spoils of war; for terrible was the glance of his eye; 
and the sound of his voice, when heard amid the strife, was like 
that of the Storm King, when he roars amid the battling billows 
of the sea. 

Manitoo was indeed beautiful. Lighter than the ordinary Indian 
complexion, she was the color of a Spanish brunette; her features 
were more of the Grecian, than of the Asiatic mould, and her 
cheeks had not that prominence which we generally find in the 
faces of the aborigines. But it was her form that surpassed in 
elegance and grace those of all others of her tribe, and became the 
admiration of the young warriors, as well as the envy of her own 
sex. Though her eye was as dark and dazzling in its brilliance 
as the diamond of the first water when polished by the lapidary; 
yet there was even a superior charm in the dignity of her demeanor, 
arid in the graceful outline of her figure ; for she felt an inherent 
consciousness that she was superior, both in person and intellect, 
to the dingy maids around her. Her form, straight as the arrow of 
the mighty bow her reputed father had borne in battle, was as 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 523 

graceful and symmetrical; and when she, stood alone upon a rock 
on the bank of the Brandywine, the long black tresses of her 
waving hair almost reaching the ground, she seemed like a fairy 
creature of enchantment ; a Venus just risen from the sea; and 
when seen in moonlight, with one foot thrown forward and her 
beautifully chisseled lips apart, revealing small even teeth white as 
ivory, she might have been taken for a chef d'ouvre from the chis- 
sel of a Praxiteles, a Michael Angelo, or a Canova. It was her de- 
light when the full round moon hung high in Heaven, to amuse 
herself by paddling down the rapid Brandywine in her fairy-formed 
bark canoe, that moved upon the swollen waters like some en- 
chanted boat gliding through the transparent atmosphere between 
two skies, the one above and the other reflected from the pellucid 
waves. Her figure, a little above the middle stature, attired in her 
royal robe adorned with variegated beads ; her head graced with a 
fanciful formed cap or bonnet, placed on one side, from which the 
long flowing white and purple feathers of a bird, now unknown in 
these forests, were suspended; and her small, exquisitely formed 
feet, encased in moccasins or slippers, embroidered with silk and 
beads of many colors — her figure, thus seen in the bow, gracefully 
guiding with a paddle her light canoe, was a subject worthy of the 
pencil of Apelles, or the sublime harp of Homer. On the moon- 
lit rocks on each side of the Brandywine, sat in groups the young 
Indian maidens and warriors, listening to the wild song of love 
which she had been taught by the pale-faced Swedes, while the 
rich music of her melodious voice died away among the rocky 
defiles in the distance, like the tones of an ^Eolian harp over the 
bosom of a lucid lake. Thus did she swiftly glide along the 
wood-skirted shores where the axe of industry has since been, 
and the hand of enterprize and art has awakened the music of 
revolving wheels and, resounding anvils. How changed indeed is 
now the scene? Gone for ever is every trace of the poor children 
of the forest, as if their footsteps had never been impressed on 
the flinty confines of that romantic stream — as if the keels of their 
airy canoes had never gracefully glided through those waters, or 
the war-whoop had never resounded in the woods. The irresisti- 
ble tide of time has swept them away; the soil which they trod 
has become the possession of the sons of civilization, and they 
have reared their sumptuous dwellings where the wigwam once 
stood, and the mighty monarch of the mountain bowed his 
branches to the blast. Though the change has resulted as a bless- 
ing to a nobler, a more enlightened race; yet, when we survey 



524 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

the melancholy ruins of a once numerous people and powerful 
empire, we cannot but mourn over the wrongs of that ill-fated race. 

Harry, or Wild Harry of Wilmington, (then called Williamstown, 
if my memory serves me right,) was a descendant of a Swedish 
family, one of the members of which built the old Swedes church, 
which still lifts its venerable time-worn walls in the cily of Wilming- 
ton ; though it then stood a considerable distance front the town. 
Harry was surnamed the "Wild," on account of his roving, ro- 
mantic, and daring spirit of adventure, and the love of every thing 
out of the common order of nature. He possessed a powerful 
athletic frame and an iron constitution, which were capable of 
enduring much hardship and fatigue; and his was a spirit that 
never quailed, a soul that shrunk not from danger or death. He 
was considered the handsomest, most active, and graceful man in 
Williamstown, or Wilmington; nor was his that baby-faced beauty 
which springs from beardless effeminacy; but he possessed those 
manly graces, those masculine charms, which never fail, when 
combined with mental attractions, to win the heart of confiding and 
discerning woman; for it is notorious that women more frequent- 
ly appreciate men for their sterling qualities, than men do women. 
Women are not so often fascinated by the mere unmeaning charms 
of person, as men are; but are more pleased with the brilliant and 
enduring graces of the mind and manners. Mirabeau was con- 
sidered the ugliest man in all France; yet he was universally 
courted and admired by the most gay, grand, graceful, and gifted 
ladies of that land of sentiment and science, of fashion and phi- 
losophy. Mere personal beauty is like a painting, which fasci- 
nates at first, but upon which we soon grow tired of gazing; while 
the attractions of mind and manners increase upon acquaintance. 
How often do we meet with persons whom we cannot fancy at all 
at first sight; yet to whom, after a time, we become attached with 
undying affection? It arises from the mysterious sympathy of soul. 

The family over which Harry presided, consisted of but two, 
beside himself; his mother and a sister, whose intellectual endow- 
ments were of the highest order. They resided in a Dutch hip- 
roofed house of ancient date, which has long since disappeared, 
with its inmates, and on the site of which now stands one of 
those splendid dwellings which grace King street. They lived 
partly on the patrimony left by the father of the family, and partly 
by the industry of their own hands; and labor in those j)riuii- 
tive days, unlike the present, was far from being considered 
disreputable. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 625 

Harry, however, would never soil his patrician hands with the 
implements of art or industry; but acquired his support in wild 
daring adventures; the scenes or consummation of which, no one 
knew. He was frequently seen at night to enter a barge on the 
waters of the Brandywine, and to pursue his way to the Delaware 
river; but whither he went, or by what means he obtained his 
cargo, no one knew. Some of the citizens viewed him as a free- 
booter; others as a smuggler; but none knew, for he invariably 
left the shore of the Brandywine in the gloom of night, and returned 
under the same concealment. Certain it was that, on these ex- 
peditions, he always went well-armed with a brace of pistols in 
his belt, and a cutlass and carbine concealed in the pseudo cabin 
of his boat. 

It was on a beautiful night in June, after having returned from 
one of his secret adventures, when the forests were carpeted with 
flowers, and the trees arrayed in rich green robes and bending 
with blossoms that Harry wandered forth by moon-light amid the 
wild and romantic recesses of the Brandywine, as was his usual 
custom, to muse and meditate alone, as some supposed, on the 
mysterious adventures in which he was engaged. Lost in thought, 
he wandered through the woodlands, and clambered over craggy 
precipices until, weary of rambling, he seated himself on a large 
flat rock, on the south side of the Brandywine, which the reader 
may now find just opposite the upper dam; and there, in a secret 
crevice, he may discover the initials of his own, and of the name 
of Manitoo, engraven on the solid stone. The storms of a century 
and a half have beaten upon that rock, but have not obliterated 
that eternal record of the Indian Beauty of the Brandywine and 
Wild Harry of Wilmington, though they have long slumbered in 
the silent city of the dead, and their bones are mouldering and 
mingling in the charnel-house of their fathers. 

Not a sound, save that of the rushing waters which had been 
swollen by the copious rains, now fell upon the ear of the musing 
Harry. The sweet odor of the wild honeysuckles, then abounding 
and blooming in the woods bordering the Brandywine, was wafied 
on the breeze to his delighted sense; rich as the smell of the 
ambrosial blossoms that scent the gales of Arabia. He was re- 
clining at full length upon that table rock, when suddenly he was 
aroused by the faint sonnd of a female voice in the distance, l^ow 
nearer and nearer, louder and louder came those delightful and 
mellifluous tones of melancholy music; now dying away in lonely 
cadences, and now swelling forth upon the ear like the full toned 



526 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

chords of the orc^an. Entranced he hung upon those bewitching 
strains, as still nearer and nearer approached the mysterious source, 
though his eye in the dim distance could not trace the outline of 
the magic musician. He listened with lips apart, and for a time 
could not conjecture whether the music was reality or romance; 
whether it issued from the silver shell of echo, the enchanted coral 
caves of the Naiads of the stream, or whether it came from the 
equally enchanted lips of woman. Had an angel's hand awakened 
to ecstasy a hundred golden harps in heaven, the melody could 
not have roused his soul to a sense of more ecstatic enjoyment, 
than did the sounds which were poured forth in exquisite pathos 
from the lovely lips of the yet unseen Syren of the Brandywine. 
He placed his ear upon the rock, and the tide of harmony rolled 
upon his spell-bound ear with all the charms of rapture and ro- 
mance; for there is no music in nature so sweet, as that which is 
breathed by the lips of lovely woman. He gazed again, and beheld 
in the distance the figure of Manitoo, in her bark canoe, as the 
light of the full moon fell upon her, and revealed all her graces to 
his astonished vision. The hour, the solitary silence, the romance 
of the scene, all invested her with irresistible charm in the heart 
of Harry. Indeed we little dream what a powerful influence 
romance has upon our feelings and aflTections, particularly in the 
quiet stillness of the night, when the moonbeams are falling in 
silvery showers around us, and the spirits of the blooming flowers 
breathe fragrance in our path. 

Nearer and nearer came the beautiful Indian maid of the Brandy- 
wine, while Harry gazed upon her straight and graceful form, and 
exquisitely moulded Grecian features, with a feeling to which he 
had ever before been a stranger. When her light canoe struck 
the shore, she did not perceive his reclining form; but on discover- 
ing him she started with maiden modesty, and attempted to push 
off" with the light paddle she held in her hand; but Harry leaped 
upon his feet and, at one bound, seized the prow of the canoe, 
beckoning her with a bewildered manner to come on shore, little 
dreaming that she could speak English. 

"Stranger," said Manitoo, in a broken but bewitching dialect, 
"let me go to the wigwam of my father." 

"Nay," returned Harry, "let me gaze upon thee; let me speak 
with thee but one moment, and thou shalt be gone." 

"Away! pale face, away! thou art the enemy of my race," she 
exclaimed, as she released herself from the grasp and suddenly 
pushed from the shore, while Harry stood with folded arms and 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 527 

each gazed at the other. In a few minutes she seated herself and 
went paddling up the stream, singing the famous death-song, which 
rung in wild echoes among the rocks, and reverberated in the 
gloomy depths of the surrounding forests, until she disappeared 
from sight. 

" Oh !" thought the fascinated and musing Harry, " what a glorious 
world were this, if all were romance and nothing were reality; if 
like the poet, the player and the artist, we could live amid the 
creations of the fancy, or revel in a world of our own; but alas! 
when the vision of bliss breaks upon us in all its gorgeous and 
dazzling beauty, it soon fades away into the dull dimness of reality. 
But so it should be. We judge of every thing by contrast. We 
appreciate pleasure by pain; health by sickness, and wealth by 
poverty. He who never sees the shadows of a picture, cannot 
properly appreciate the beauty of the lights; and he who is never 
sick, knows not the enjoyment of health." 

Thus did Harry meditate, until he turned his footsteps towards 
home. He retired to his comfortable bed; but the drowsy god 
laid not his leaden sceptre upon his eyes. The romantic figure of 
ihe beautiful Indian was still before his vision ; and the death-song, 
as she went up the Brandywine, still rung in his ears. He could 
think of nothing but the sweet smile that beamed upon her beauti- 
ful face, as she stood gazing upon his manly form and waving the 
fond adieu. 

At the dawn of day he fell into a deep slumber, in which he 
had a dream. He fancied that he strayed on the Brandywine to 
the same rock where he had first beheld the maiden, and that she 
approached the shore with a wreath of wild flowers, which she 
gracefully presented to him, at the same time breathing in his ear 
a vow of undying affection. Suddenly she grasped him by the 
hand; released it as suddenly; flew to her canoe, and pushed off 
into the stream. As he stood gazing he saw her tear her hair, 
and with horror beheld her plunge madly in the water and disap- 
pear. Starting he awoke from his wild dream. 

"What is the matter, brother?" enquired his sister, who had 
been standing at the bedside, watching his emotion. 

"Oh! nothing," replied Harry, "but a romantic vision I have 
had ; such as often disturbs my sleep." 

It is something singular that many persons have formed attach- 
ments in dreams, which made an impression on the mind when 
awake that never faded away. Such an impression was made up- 
on the mind of Harry. In his waking moments, the fairy form 



528 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

he had seen in his dream was before his vision; and yet he dared 
not own the power of her charms. 

The next night, Harry again visited the solitary rock on the 
Brandywine, in ardent hope that he would again behold the lovely 
Naiad of the waters; but she came not. Night after night he 
wandered there, and sat for hours contemplating the solitary gran- 
deur of the scene; but he saw not the majestic figure of the In- 
dian Beauty, standing in bold relief on her fairy and fragile bark 
canoe; and he heard not the rich melody of her lips, lingering in 
echoes among the rocks, and melting away in murmurs amid the 
surrounding hills. With a sense of disappointment, he gave up 
the fondly cherished hope of seeing again the being who had 
thrown a spell of enchantment and romance around him; for he 
imagined that Manitoo had gone with the Indian hunters on an 
expedition far up into the country. 

The next night Wild Harry of Wilmington might have been 
seen wending his way down the Brandywine to the Delaware 
river. He boarded a brig from Bremen, richly laden with mer- 
chandise, which his object was to purchase and sell to the Swedes. 
He returned from that floating fabric of disease, with the seeds of 
the plague deeply implanted in his system, which soon became 
known to the inhabitants, who in terror fled from him, as from a 
loathsome mass of contagion. The ties of consanguinity were 
annihilated; and his friends, alarmed for their lives, all forsook 
him, save his intellectual and heroic sister, who clung to him with 
undying affection, and perilled her own, to save the life of her 
brother, whom she devotedly loved. 

The desolating ravages of the plague in London, in the year 
1666, had spread alarm throughout Europe and the British Colo- 
nies in America; and some of those who resided in and around 
Wilmington, had witnessed the horrors of that memorable cala- 
mity. It is not to be wondered at, then, that they should start 
with alarm, when the terrific news went on the wings of the wind 
that the dreadful scourge was in the neighborhood. 

Harry was removed, by the universal voice of the people, to an 
old deserted wigwam, far up on the south bank of the Brandy- 
wine, followed by his faithful and affectionate sister, who was 
heroically determined to immolate herself on the pyre of her per- 
ishing brother, or, by her assiduity and attention, restore him 
again to his former health and home. In this lonely habitation, 
she, with unwearied attention, ministered to his wants through the 
day, and sat reading to him through the solemn and solitary night. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 529 

thus cheering his drooping spirit, as well as abstracting his mind 
from the contemplation of his situation, which in a sick room is 
of the utmost consequence to the well-being of the patient. 

One day, vviiile she was gone to town to procure such articles 
as the necessity of his condition required, Harry, whose face was 
fanned by the cooling breeze of summer, gradually sunk into a 
sweet slumber; nor did he awake until the light footstep of his 
sister Julia, as he imagined, fell upon his ear. Imagine, gentle 
reader, his surprise and delight, when he opened his eyes, at be- 
holding before him, arrayed in all her graceful charms, Manitoo, 
the Indian Beauty of the Brandy wine! Arrayed in the robe usually 
worn by an Indian princess, she was standing over him with clasp- 
ed hands and elevated eyes, as if invoking the Great Spirit to spare 
the life of the pale-face, whose romaritic interview on the rock by 
moonlight had left as strong traces upon the mirror of her memo- 
ry, as had her heavenly smile and fairy form on the heart of Harry. 
Taking her hand, with a look that conveyed to her susceptible 
soul the language of love, he motioned her to be seated; and 
while she sat and gazed upon him with a sweetly sympathizing 
glance from her dark and dazzling eye, so full of melting tender- 
ness, he fondly pressed her small hand to his lips, and then to his 
bosom. Manitoo felt, as well as understood his allusions; and, 
according to the custom of her tribe, she knelt and kissed his 
cheek, then pressed her luxurious lips to his pale forehead. 

Just as Harry had relinquished her hand, Julia returned and felt 
strange emotions at seeing an Indian princess in the presence, 
and at the bedside of her afflicted brother: though she did not 
suspect for a moment how great a sympathy existed between those 
two souls, or how ardent was the romantic attachment that linked 
their hearts together — for it was not then as now; the sight of an 
Indian was to her no curiosity. But she was struck with the sin- 
gular beauty of the being before her; minutely scrutinizing her 
exquisite figure; her fascinating features; and her unique, rich, 
and romantic dress. 

After a short time, during which she betrayed by look or word, 
nothing that had transpired between Harry and herself, she grace- 
fully pronounced a parting benediction, and promised to visit 
again the afflicted stranger. 

The next day she returned, bringing her father with her, and a 

young warrior of the Choctaw tribe, who it could plainly be seen 

was her lover, and expected to be the favored suitor for her hand. 

She brought with her various kinds of herbs, and, after formallv 

67 



630 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARU. 

making known to the brother and sister the personages she had 
brought with her, she applied herself to the task, according to the 
custom of the Indians, of making a concoction for the sufferer, 
assuring him with an earnest and bewitching manner that it would 
speedily restore him to health. Indeed, so great was her solici- 
tude, and so assiduous her attention to the sick one, that the dark 
eye of the stately young Indian warrior flashed with suspicion that 
her manner revealed a warm feeling of regard; and, as a natural 
consequence, the passion of jealousy, so common to the Indian, 
rankled for the first time in his heart. 

There is as powerful a language in the manner of woman, and 
in the varied expressions of her eye, as in the bewitching words 
of her tongue, and that language is not less easily understood 
when it appeals to the heart. Where is the man who does not at 
once recognize her sweet look of love ; her gentle glance of appro- 
bation; her averted expression of offended modesty; or her with- 
ering scowl of scorn? The eye of woman is the very dial-plate of 
her feelings and affections; the very mirror of her mind, from 
which the lights and shadows of her soul are reflected. 

But the young warrior, who stood silent and stately as the tower- 
ing monarch of the mountain forest, affected the indifference to 
the scene before him, that is so characteristic of the aborigines of 
America. But when they had left, and he sat alone with Manitoo 
beneath the shade of an oak in the distant forest, Mandika, the 
young warrior, revealed to the confused Beauty of the Brandywine 
his suspicion that the pale-face had stolen from him the affections 
of her heart. Her downcast looks of maiden modesty confirmed 
his suspicion, and he bit his lips with rage, and resolved to appeal 
to her adopted father. Undine. He did not upbraid her with in- 
constancy; yet, with a stolen glance, she saw reflected from his 
eye the dark storm of jealousy; the revengeful tempest of passion 
that was raging in his soul. 

Mandika arose with insulted feelings, for nothing so wounds 
the pride of an Indian warrior as to be slighted in love, or to meet 
with infidelity in the heart upon whose constancy he had placed 
implicit confidence. He arose; took the hand of Manitoo, and 
bending upon her a withering look of scorn, he threw it from him 
■with disdain and fled with the speed of a deer. Manitoo was 
astonished, for she had never been accustomed to any treatment 
from the tribe of her princely father but that of homage, and the 
most affectionate kindness and obedience to her wishes. Her 
influence arose in part from the distinction of her birth, and more 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 531 

from the fascinating power of her beauty. This was the first time 
she had ever experienced unkindness, or had been treated with 
indignity; but instead of creating resentment in her soul, it awoke 
her gentle heart to tenderness and sorrow, and as she arose to go 
to the wigwam, she burst into tears. 

Harry, by the powerful medicinal properties of the herbs which 
Manitoo had given him, gradually recovered, until he entirely re- 
gained his health, and returned to town. He had not now seen 
that fascinating being, who had saved his life, for several weeks; 
though he frequently repaired at night to the rock on the Brandy- 
wine, long after called the lovej-'s rock, where he first beheld her 
in all her singular and winning beauty. He longed to behold her 
once more, that he might fall at her feet, and confess the passion 
he felt for one who had braved the danger of contagious disease, 
and generously brought to him the means of life and health. 

Ah! what is there in this world of affliction, that so quickly and 
lastingly opens the heart to the hallowed influence of love as 
sympathy, kindness and attention, in the hour of sickness, distress 
and danger, when fond, confiding, faithful woman comes like a 
minister of mercy, to heal by her heavenly influence the sinking 
energies of man? More than once have I seen beside the bed of 
sickness, two hearts cemented together in the holy bonds of 
affection, by that mysterious chain of sympathetic feeling, which 
is seldom ever broken. More than once have I seen a youth lead 
the fair and beautiful object of his idolatry to the altar, whose heart 
had never acknowledged the witchery of woman's charms, until 
she came like an angel of the earth, in the hour of affliction, to 
bathe his burning brow, to administer the balm of relief in sick- 
ness, and gently smooth the pillow of repose with her soft hand. 
There is indeed a magic charm in the attentions of woman at any 
time, and under any circumstances, when we are chained to the 
comfortless couch of agonizing disease. Who has not known the 
kind attentions of a fond mother; who has not felt the sweet sym- 
pathy of an affectionate sister, or acknowledged the untiring devo- 
tion of a faithful wife, when the raging fire of fever was burning 
on the altar of his heart, and faint with sickness, his soul was 
ready to sink in despair? Who that has known the sweets of home 
and has wandered far among strangers, has not mourned over the 
absence of those gentle attentions, and winning influences, and 
holy hallowed sympathies of heavenly woman, while he suffered 
the pangs of excruciating disease? It has been said that woman, 
by her weakness in the garden of Eden, brought ruin and misery 



532 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

upon mankind; but tell me, ye contemners of female affection, 
has she not amply redeemed the wrong by the earthly heaven she 
has created in the heart of man? No wonder that Adam followed 
the angel Eve from the paradise from which she had been driven; 
for, though he had been rendered unhappy by her, without her he 
would have been a far greater wretch. 

It was some time after the events narrated, that Harry while 
amusing himself in a hunting expedition, which he extended far 
into the then dense and almost interminable forest adjoining Wil- 
mington, was startled by the distant yell and war-whoop. Fear- 
less of danger, and adventurous in disposition, he turned his steps 
in the direction from which the sounds came, anxious to discover 
some human being who could direct him in his course home, he 
having lost his way in the circuitous route he had taken. He had 
not proceeded more than a mile, when a scene broke upon his 
view which he had never before witnessed, and which gratified 
him; for he was passionately fond of the wild, the wonderful, and 
romantic. The council-fire, around which the Indians had met that 
day in grave debate, was not yet extinguished, and they were per- 
forming the war-dance. As soon as Manitoo beheld Harry, she 
gracefully motioned him to advance; and, after whispering in the 
ear of the chief, her father, who was arrayed in all the glittering, 
gaudy magnificence of an eastern monarch, she flew to his side, 
seized his hand affectionately, and led him to the centre of the 
circle of warriors, and seated him on a kind of fantastic throne or 
chair, ingeniously made of the branches of the oak, the hickory, 
and grape-vine, and festooned with the gayest flowers of the forest. 
She then filled and lighted the calumet of peace; and after pre- 
senting it to the bewildered and delighted Harry, the war-dance 
recommenced. Near the centre sat the beautiful Manitoo, with a 
number of Indian girls, and the warriors brandishing their toma- 
hawks and waving their glittering knives, as in battle, kept time to 
the singularly solemn music of a kind of drum, on which several 
dusky damsels were incessantly beating; while ever and anon from 
the lips of the excited warriors issued the shrill scream of agony, 
the yell of revenge, and the loud war-whoop of triumph, imitating 
at the same time the manner in which the unerring arrow is des- 
patched from the bow in battle. Round and round went the whole 
band, throwing their arms and gleaming knives and tomahawks in 
the air, and stamping with their feet in perfect time with the mu- 
sic; while their yells and war-whoops rung through the forest, till 
suddenly a signal was given by the beautiful Manitoo, and the 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 533 

dance ceased; each warrior ran to his seat, and silence reigned 
supreme. Harry was in perfect ecstasy at witnessing so romantic 
a scene. While he yet mused upon the strange manners and sin- 
gular customs of those uneducated children of the forest, the 
whole group arose, as with one accord, with their faces to the 
East; and then turning to the West, they all simultaneously bowed 
down on their knees before the setting sun, while the medicine 
man, prophet, or priest, gave thanks in a short address to the Great 
Spirit, who had guided their arrows and given them triumph in the 
hour of battle. So solemn was the scene that the heart of Wild 
Harry thrilled with emotion, and a feeling of veneration for their 
superstitious worship crept involuntarily into his mind. 

"Why," said Harry, mentally, "should we have a contempt for 
the religious worship of the Indian, since he bends his knee be- 
fore that glorious luminary of Heaven which gives light and life 
to creation, as a type of that more glorious light, that infinitely 
greater luminary, who not only guides and governs, but is the 
centre and soul of the universe?" 

Harry thus mused some time, till Manitoo approached him with 
a very graceful step and winning air, though all unconscious of 
her grace, and presented to him a bunch of wild flowers, tied with 
a belt beautifully embroidered with silk beads in the manner in 
which her own moccasins or slippers were adorned. She pre- 
sented her hand; he arose, kissed her forehead, and seated her 
beside him, while the last rays of the setting sun illumined her 
perfect features. 

During this scene, which was witnessed with pleasure by all the 
group, Mandika, the young warrior and once successful lover of 
the Beauty of the Brandywine, sat gloomily apart, watching with 
the dark, dazzling eye of a serpent, the pale-faced lover. Had 
the fang of a poisonous reptile been fixed in his heart, he could 
not have writhed in greater agony than he experienced from that 
envy and jealousy which were rankling in his soul. The beautiful 
Manitoo occasionally cast her large, languishing, and melting dark 
eye towards him with a kind of triumph; for she, like her sex 
generally, when in the brilliant blaze of beauty, was a coquette, 
and loved to tantalize an envious, despairing lover. 

Metaphysical philosophers have not told us whether or not co- 
quetry is, like conscience, the creature of education; but I am 
inclined to the opinion that it is a natural instinct in the heart or 
mind of woman, and many times, when judiciously exercised, con- 
stitutes her most peculiar and powerful charm. Hence all gentle- 



534 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

men of sense have agreed that coquetry is the birth-right and 
beautiful privilege of a lady. She must not trample feelings that 
she cannot prize, but that, however, no lady will do; and hence, 
if a lover would be irresistibly captivated, and see woman in her 
most winning and bewitching charms, he must see her as a co- 
quette, flying like a butterfly from flower to flower, but at last set- 
tling on the sweetest one. 

Mandika knew how to bend the bow, and to aim the arrow and 
the tomahawk in the deadly strife of war, when the thunder and 
whirlwind of battle were rolling by him ; but he knew not that to 
be completely captivated by woman, he must be kept in doubt as 
well as hope; for what is easily obtained, we seldom set much 
value upon. Hear it, ye modern beauties of the Brandy wine! — 
aye, and of Wilmington, too! — if ye would bind the heart of a 
man with a chain that shall be stronger than one of adamant, and 
that shall never be broken, ye must not suff"er the light of hope to 
burst too brightly on his soul; for as the eye may gaze upon the 
dazzling diamond until it seems to become dim, so does love 
when too luxuriously successful, pall upon the heart of man, in 
the same manner that a rich dinner satiates the appetite and loses 
its flavor, when the stomach is gorged to gluttony. Money that 
is easily made, is little valued and soon spent. So it is with love; 
and so with every thing. The bride is never so blessed in the 
heart of her husband, as when he has labored hard, and braved 
every thing to obtain her — braved her own coquetry, as well as the 
determined opposition of her friends. 

The young warrior was not skilled in the art and mystery of 
love, yet his fears were well founded as it happened; for though 
he had wooed the charming Manitoo with all a warrior's ardor, 
and with all a lover's language, her heart remained insensible to 
the passion that was consuming his sensitive soul. The dark and 
desperate thought occurred to his mind that if he could find an 
opportunity to despatch Harry secretly, the idol of his soul, the 
beautiful Manitoo, would be all his own. But how could he man- 
age the matter? Harry was under the necessity of returning home 
through an extensive forest; for the beautiful farms, the fields of 
which now wave with golden grain, were then overshadowed by 
lofty oaks that had braved the storms of centuries, and Mandika 
conceived the plan of following him, as a pretended guide, and in 
an unguarded moment strike him down with his tomahawk. But 
what if he should miss his aim ? Harry was a powerful man, and 
had with him the deadly rifle for his defence, as the reader is aware 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 535 

that he had been on a hunting or sporting excursion. The youncr 
warrior was a sufficient judge of men to be aware that Harry 
would not die without a desperate struggle, and he abandoned the 
stratagem as a dangerous one. 

The dim shadows of evening were now fast creeping through 
the forest, and the mocking-bird was singing in the great church of 
nature his hymn to departing day, when Harry arose, and pressing 
the hand of Manitoo, prepared to depart. Undine, the chief, per- 
ceiving his preparation, advanced and pressed him to remain with 
them through the night, as it would be impossible for him to find 
his way home through the gloom of the forest. The chief was 
flattered by the attention Harry paid to his daughter, and he hoped 
by their union to secure advantages and privileges from the pale- 
faces. While thus pressing him to remain, Mandika, to the aston- 
ishment of the young squaws, came up with a smiling counte- 
nance, if he could be said ever to wear a smile, and joined the 
chief in his solicitation. 

After some hesitation Harry yielded to their desire, so earnestly 
and warmly expressed, and immediately the chief gave orders to 
the squaws to prepare a feast, as it was his design to make merry 
and entertain the pale-face as he should be entertained by a 
mighty chief, whose will was law, and whose word must be 
obeyed. The utensils for cooking were brought from the wigwam, 
placed over the fire, and the most delicious pieces of wild-cat and 
bear-meat were placed in them ; but no one dared approach even 
to steal a smell from the savory and luxurious repast, until it was 
served up and the signal was given to partake. 

Harry felt a repugnance to, and a prejudice against the use of 
bear-meat, to say nothing of that of the wild-cat; but he knew 
that an Indian hated nothing so mortally as to see his kindness 
slighted, and exercising that philosophy which teaches a man to 
make the best of a bad bargain, he dipped into the enormous 
trencher, and tore the half-cooked meat so vigorously with his 
teeth, that the heart of the truly good old chief was filled with 
rapture. 

"Ah! my children," exclaimed the chief, "you now be fit for 
good talk. You no fit for good talk till you eat. You love Indian, 
you love pale-face, you love the Great Spirit more when you no 
hungry." 

This language of Undine, addressed to the whole group, was 
true philosophy; for the nerves of an empty stomach are irritable, 
and the great sympathy existing between the stomach and brain. 



536 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

causes a man to be very ill-natured when hungry for his dinner. 
Never ask a favor just before dinner, if you wish to obtain it, but 
apply a short time after, when the man becomes lazy, for lazy 
people are invariably good-natured. Should you see an industri- 
ous housewife, fly from her broom-handle; for you will find her a 
termagant and a tartar. Should the writer of this narrative ever 
exchange the bliss of celibacy for the silken bonds of matrimony, 
may the gods grant him a lazy wife. Smile not, ye dashing dam- 
sels of Delaware, nor turn up your pretty noses, for every word is 
as true as Gospel; for ye may have "proofs from Holy Writ." 

The whole group of Indians, with Harry in the midst, were now 
seated before one of the wigwams, and the full moon illuminated 
the scene. The lighted calumet, or pipe of peace, was handed to 
Harry, and from him it passed round, until it had pressed the lips 
of all save Mandika; who, like a tiger in his cage, was walking 
backward and forward before the wigwam, with his arms folded 
and his eyes bent on the ground. The beautiful Manitoo, who 
was using every little art, which woman so well knows how to use, 
to engage the attention of Harry, still kept her eyes upon Mandika, 
and felt in her mind a dark foreboding of evil, while her pale-faced 
lover remained as unconscious as he was fearless of danger. The 
young Indian warrior as the fire-water or liquor passed round, fre- 
quently stepped up and indulged in deep potations ; for temperance 
societies were then unknown. 

The manner of Mandika, though he said nothing, seemed to 
become more and more ferocious, as the quantities of meat and 
fire-water he had taken began to operate; and his clenched hands, 
meditative mood, and singular gestures, seemed to indicate that a 
storm was rising in his soul. Still he walked to and fro without 
seeming to notice that being, whose beauty was the idol of his 
heart; or his successful rival, whom he now hated with an Indian's 
hatred. 

Lord Byron was of the opinion, that eating meat has a tendency 
to render men savage and ferocious; and if we look into the great 
field of nature, we find the fact corroborated by observation and 
analogy. Savage nations feed principally on flesh, and as we ad- 
vance step by step to the highest grade of civilized society, we 
find among the refined and intellectual, that flesh constitutes less 
and less a constituent part of diet. Beasts that feed on flesh are 
ferocious; as the lion, the tiger, the wolf, and the dog; the hyena, 
so fond of human flesh, being most ferocious of all, and in some 
species untameable; while on the contrary, those animals that 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 537 

feed upon grain and other vegetable matter are gentle, whether in 
the forest or field ; as the horse, the ox, the elephant, the camel, 
the deer and sheep. 

Be this matter as it may, the savage fury of the tiger was raging 
in the heart of the young warrior, while Manitoo was bestowing 
her smiles on the handsome pale-faced guest. Still flowed the 
fire-water round that circle of hunters, warriors, and dark-eyed 
damsels, till mirth filled every heart, save that of Mandika, and 
the whole group arose, mingling in the spirit-stirring dance. Again 
the strange sound of the instrument used, went echoing through 
the dim and dun shades of the silent forest; and though doleful 
to the ear of Harry, it had in it a romantic charm that fascinated 
his heart. 

The moon, the empress of the night, now walked high in heaven, 
like bridal beauty in her hall, when a signal was given by the 
chief, and in an instant the dancers ceased their wild carousal, 
and the sound of the drum no longer reverberated through the 
wild recesses of the woodland. All retired to their wigwams to 
repose; and, according to custom, Harry, the guest, was invited 
to stretch his limbs on bear-skins and buffalo-hides, spread on the 
floor of the wigwam occupied by the chief and his lovely daughter, 
the far-famed beauty of the Brandywine. 

All was now silent in the forest, save the sounds that issued 
from the locusts among the lofty trees; but Manitoo in vain sought 
to close her eyes in sleep. There was a mysterious presentiment 
in her mind of evil, and yet she knew not why, or feared to con- 
fess it to herself; for so dim were the outlines of her foreboding, 
that it seemed but the fairy fabric of a dream. But while her 
gentle spirit started at the sound of every passing breeze sighing 
in sweetness among the wild flowers of the forest, the chief and 
his guest, overcome by the influence of the fire-water, slept soundly, 
unconscious of danger; and though Harry had never before spent 
a night among the Indians in the gloom of the wilderness, and 
though he knew that he had blighted in the heart of the Indian 
maiden the blossoms of Mandika's love, and that the wrath of his 
rival was terrible; yet he slumbered calmly, and feared no evil. 

The moon was sinking in the western heavens, and yet the 
beautiful eyes of Manitoo had not been closed in slumber. Sud- 
denly she heard the stealthy step, as she supposed, of some animal 
prowling around the wigwam in search of the bones and refuse 
meat thrown upon the ground, and instantly leaping to her feet 
with the agility of a chamois, she seized the rifle which Harry had 
68 



538 "WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

placed against the side of the wigwam. The door of the wigwam 
was open, and concealing herself near the door, behind a buffalo 
skin which hung against the wall, she awaited the approach of ihe 
ravenous animal, resolving to take deliberate aim, and send death's 
messenger to its heart. 

But gentle reader, imagine her horror and alarm when, instead 
of a wild beast, she beheld a man in disguise steal into the wigwam, 
and search as if looking for something lost. Paralyzed with fear, 
she for a moment could not move or speak, and during that brief 
period she saw him draw from his belt a glittering knife, ready to 
strike it home, to the heart of the still sleeping Harry. She 
screamed, as she leaped from her concealment, with the rifle in 
her hand; but neither of the sleepers awoke, for they were over- 
come by the liquor they had drank. Elevating the deadly weapon, 
she cried out in the Indian dialect — "Murderer, dare not to strike 
the innocent and the helpless, or I call the Great Spirit to witness, 
that by the hand of her you love you shall perish on his lifeless body." 

Mandika started and dropped the knife which he was about to 
baptize in blood, as if her voice had been a thunder-bolt aimed at 
his heart by the Great Spirit. The light at the door displayed her 
exquisitely sculptured form, and he beheld her levelling the fatal 
rifle at his breast; and well he knew from her determined, though 
gentle spirit, that no sooner would his knife drink the life-blood of 
the sleeper, than her unerring aim would send the ball to its des- 
tination. As an Indian princess, he felt, too, that she was born 
to command; and he crept by her and disappeared from the wig- 
wam, like an evil spirit, without uttering a word. 

At this moment Harry, having slept off" the fumes of the liquor., 
was roused by Manitoo, as she fell upon her knees and in impas- 
sioned eloquence offered her thanks to the Great Spirit, who had 
warned her of danger and thus placed it in her power to save the 
life of him she loved. The Indians were then, as they are now, 
extremely superstitious; and the young Beauty of the Brandy wine 
religiously believed that an especial token had been given her, that 
she might rescue Harry from impending destruction. Smile not, 
ye accomplished belles of the present day, at the simplicity of her 
belief; for superstition, even now, rears her throne in the halls of 
learning, and sways with an iron sceptre the most gigantic minds 
that illuminate the world. 

Aurora, with her pencil dipped in gold, was just beginning to 
paint the orient, and to scatter flowers in the pathway of the god 
of day. She related to the astonished Harry how he had, through 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 639 

her watchful devotion, escaped imminent death; and as she spoke, 
he made an effort to snatch the rifle from her hands, with the in- 
tention of instantly taking vengeance on the assassin; but she 
eluded his grasp, and exclaimed in broken English — "Beware, 
rash man, nor attempt to imbrue your hands in his blood. Know 
you not that, according to the custom of the Indians, it would 
prove certain death to you, should you madly slay him? His 
father; his brother; aye, or even his sister, would pursue your 
steps, and never rest until the hands of one of them should reek 
with your gore." 

This was the substance of her language, and Harry remembered 
to have read of the custom among the Indians of retaliation for 
the murder of a relative, in some instances of which whole fami- 
lies had been exterminated, and a brother as the avenger of a 
murdered brother, had pursued the murderer hundreds of miles, 
through forests and morasses, until his knife was red with revenge. 
Then, in turn, he was pursued by the father or brother of his vic- 
tim ; or was given up by his friends, that his blood might appease 
their wrath. 

Though Harry, perhaps, had never seen the pages of the immor- 
tal poet, he wisely concluded with Shakspeare, that "discretion 
is the better part of valor," and resolved to pass the matter over 
in silence, though his dauntless soul feared not a single arm 
among the daring warriors of the tribe. 

Without waking the chief, he concluded an arrangement with 
Manitoo, by which they should meet by moonlight on the bank of 
the Brandywine ; and, after she had directed him the course he 
was to take through the forest, he fondly embraced her, vowing 
eternal constancy for her affection, and gratitude for the preserva- 
tion of his life. He received from her beautiful hand a token of 
her own fidelity, and bidding adieu, he shouldered his rifle, and 
started through the wild, unbroken solitude of the forest. Musing 
upon the singular adventure and the event of the night, he as- 
cended a hill and turned to see if he could catch a glimpse of that 
being, who had so miraculously preserved him from inevitable 
death. There, on the same spot where he had left her, he beheld 
the stately form of the princess ; her exquisite eye still bent upon 
his receding figure, and again and again, as he travelled on, he 
turned and fondly waved her adieu, until she was lost to his view 
in the dim distance of the forest. 

When Harry arrived at home about mid-day, he discovered that 
his mother and sister .Tulia had been much distressed about his 



640 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

absence ; fearing from his wild and reckless disposition, that he 
had encountered Indians during his hunting expedition, or that 
some other danger had beset his path ; for he had promised to 
return at night, and they had never known him to falsify his word. 
Harry explained, or related to them how he had been lost and had 
spent the night with the Indians, at which Julia turned pale, while 
his aged mother fondly embraced him ; for though she had two 
other sons on the sea, like most mothers she loved the wildest 
most. 

The fair Julia Dewaldsen feared, from the romantic peculiarities 
of her brother, and from having more than once overheard him in 
his sleep addressing some imaginary being with a singular name, 
that he had formed an attachment to some Indian girl, well know- 
ing from her intellectual acquirement, that truth is stranger than 
fiction. She knew that the more wild and romantic the attachment, 
the more fascinating would it prove to the heart of Harry. And 
ihen she had noticed his abstracted manner, his musing moods, 
his absence of mind and love of solitude, which she knew to be 
the certain symptoms of a soul in love. She had never mentioned 
her suspicion, even to his mother, and resolved while she kept the 
secret locked in her bosom, to discover by some means whether 
or not her suspicion was correct. 

Nothing so wounds the sensibility of a high-souled sister, as to 
discover an attachment between her brother and an object whom 
she considers inferior to him. Julia had noticed the frequent 
absence of Harry during summer evenings, and she determined, 
if possible, to follow him and discover whither he went, and for 
what object. But she found it next to impossible to do so, for 
when he left home he frequently visited a dozen places in an op- 
posite direction, before he repaired to the lover's rock. 

Time rolled on, and every other evening he met the Indian 
Beauty of the Brandywine at the place appointed, and every time 
they met, the silken chain of love that bound their hearts, became 
stronger and stronger. The Indian maiden, like women gene- 
rally, adorned her person to please her lover; and every night they 
met, she came down the Brandywine in her bark canoe, arrayed 
in all the splendid attire of a lady belonging to a Turkish harem. 
Her robe, like the Roman toga, displayed the graceful proportions 
of her perfect person to the best advantage : while it was adorned 
with all the gay and gaudy tinsel ornaments that Indian taste and 
female vanity could suggest. Brilliant and beautiful indeed was 
her appearance, as she approached in her canoe by the light of the 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 541 

moon, falling in dazzling brightness on the many-colored beads 
and tinsel ornaments that profusely adorned her princely dress. 
Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, when she came down the river Cydnus 
in her gorgeous glory, her barge with silken sails, and gilded oars, 
keeping time to a band of music, while she reclined upon a crim- 
son couch fanned by the loveliest maidens, made not a greater 
impression upon the soul of Mark Antony, than did the Indian 
Beauty of the Brandy wine upon the heart of Harry Dewaldsen. 

It was on a charming evening in spring, or the beginning of 
summer, when the turtle-dove was cooing to its mate in the wood- 
land, and nature was arrayed in her richest robes, adorned with 
flowers, that Harry lay reclining on the bank of the Brandyvvine, 
and resting his head in the lap of the princess. He was pouring 
in her delighted ear protestations of love, as most men do, which 
he had not asked his heart whether it would keep or not, and she 
was sketching plans of future happiness with all a woman's fancy, 
which she knew not whether they would ever be realized. Golden 
dreams of bliss filled their young hearts, as they have filled the 
hearts of thousands who once lived, and loved, and died, and the 
happy hours rolled by them like the bright and beautiful billows 
that break on a silvery shore. 

While Harry was thus luxuriating on the youthful heart's deli- 
cious banquet of love, his sister Julia approached unseen, and 
concealed herself behind the trunk of an umbrageous beech tree, 
where she could hear every word that fell from the lips of the 
unconscious lovers. Satisfied at length in her own mind, with 
regard to the intentions of her brother, and horrified at the idea 
of his becoming betrothed to an Indian, though that Indian was 
a princess, she silently left the spot and glided through the gloom 
of the woodland towards home, to communicate to his mother, 
and some relatives who lived near where the bridge now crosses 
the Christiana, the tidings of the disgrace that Harry was about 
to bring upon his family. 

When Harry, late in the night, was about to bid adieu to the 
happy-hearted Beauty of the Brandyvvine, they both knelt beneath 
the silver moon, and pledged to each other the vow of constancy, 
little thinking how changeable a witness they had invoked in the 
bright queen of Heaven. 

They parted : each happy in the consciousness of possessing 
the other's affections. Oh! how happy is that heart that first 
opens its portal to the god of love ; and how blissful is courtship 
in the days of youth and first love. It is by far the happiest 



542 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



period of life, to which we look back in after years, as to a green 
spot in the waste of memory; for then the hours fly by on golden 
wings, and the wilderness of this world is transformed, by the 
magic wand of romance, to a beautiful ideal world of dreams, 
adorned with fancy's flowers. 

Harry had no sooner reached home, than his quick perception 
took cognizance of the cloud that rested on the countenances of 
his sister and mother. They questioned him as to the purport of 
his late absence from home, but a sullen silence, and an imper- 
turbable gravity rested on his lips, and characterized his manner. 

" Brother," at length interrogated his intellectual sister, Julia, 
"can it be possible that you are madly determined to form an alli- 
ance with a wild, uneducated, uncivilized Indian girl, and thus 
cast a stain upon the character of your family, darker than the hue 
of her skin?" 

"I cannot understand you," returned the brother, affecting to 
be a stranger to the purport of her words. 

" Harry," continued the excited sister, " we are aware of your 
visits to the banks of the Brandywine ; we are aware of the object 
of your visits, and of your ill-fated attachment. Aye, sir, your 
footsteps have been watched, and the unhallowed language of 
your lips has been overheard by other ears than those to which it 
was addressed. For shame, my brother!" 

"The greater shame," retorted Harry, as he bent his stern eye 
full upon Julia, " the greater shame should crimson the cheek of 
those who meanly follow the footsteps of another, and obtain by 
stealth the secret intended for a private ear." 

"My son," exclaimed his mother with deep emotion, "did I 
cradle you in my arms in infancy, and rear you with all the 
anxious care and solicitude of a fond mother, that in manhood 
you should become the husband of a savage?" 

As the last word fell from her lips, Harry's eyes flashed fire, 
and his whole soul was moved with an indefinable passion. 

"She is no savage, madam," he at length answered. "The 
blood that circles in her veins is as gentle, and in her bosom beats 
a heart as noble, as even those may boast who scorn her race. 
The title of a lady springs not from the color of the skin, though 
it be as fair as that of a Scandinavian, any more than education 
gives a native goodness to the heart, or bestows the gem of genius 
on the mind. As lovely a flower as ever blushed or blossomed, 
has graced the silent solitude of the forest, its beauties unmarked 



WRITINGS OP THE MILPROD BARD. 543 

by mortal eyes. Aye, and as noble a heart as ever beat in a hu- 
man bosom, has gloried in the appellation of an Indian." 

"But, my dear brother," asked Julia, in a softer tone, "can you 
render those you love wretched, by taking to your arms a rude, 
uncultivated Indian?" 

" She whom you affect so much to despise," bitterly retorted 
Harry, "is not only worthy of your warmest esteem, but would be 
an honor to your boasted family, as well as an ornament to the 
bosom that will protect her from contumely and scorn." 

As these words fell from the lips of the incensed young man, 
he seized a lighted taper and retired to his room. Nothing so 
wounds the sensitive bosom, as to hear the character of the wor- 
shiped idol of his heart traduced ; and so great was the perturba- 
tion of Harry, that the god, Morpheus, came not near his eyelids 
that night. 

The next day a consultation was held, and all the relatives of 
Harry, who then resided in and around the village of Wilmington, 
were summoned in secret conclave, among whom was a very 
wealthy old uncle, just tottering on the verge of the grave, whose 
day-book was his Bible, and whose gold was his god. He was a 
kind of mighty Mogul and Mentor in the family, and on his money- 
bags were fixed the expectations of every member of it; for money, 
like music, had then, as now, charms to soothe the civilized as 
well as the savage breast. Mike Dewaldsen was well aware of the 
influence of money, and had he been a demi-god, he could not 
have governed the family with more tyrannic sway. 

It is sufficient to inform the reader that, though Harry was dead 
to the appeals of his mother and sister, the silver-shod arguments 
of the uncle were all-powerful, and that through fear of being cut 
off" with a shilling if he disobeyed, and the promise of golden re- 
ward if he obeyed, backed by the earnest prayers and persuasions 
of all, Harry was induced finally to repudiate that fond, confiding 
girl, who would have sacrificed her life to secure his happiness. 
Yes, for filthy lucre, for which so many have delved and died, he 
resolved to sacrifice that pure passion which burnt like a vestal 
flame on the altar of Manitoo's heart, and to throw her from his 
bosom like a worthless weed or faded flower. 

The night which had been appointed for their next meeting on 
lover's rock arrived, and Harry, with strange feelings, stood upon 
the bank of the Brandywine, which no longer echoes the accents 
of the poor Indian girl's despair. She came — her heavenly form 
en wreathed with flowers — and as she approached the idol of her 



544 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

soul with sweetest smiles, and attempted to embrace him, Harry 
coldly stepped back and said, with a still colder tone of voice — 
"Manitoo, the Great Spirit has willed that we should part." 

"Part!" exclaimed the poor girl, as she turned her large and 
languishing eyes to heaven, with a look of heart-breaking woe, 
"Part! ha! ha!" and the rocks rang with her hysterical laugh. 

"Aye, part forever," continued Harry. "We can never meet 
again !" 

The bewildered princess gazed on him some time in silent sor- 
row, while torrents of tears gushed from her eyes. But as the 
import of his words seemed to flash upon her mind, the forest 
was fllled with the echoes of the poor girl's cries. She implored 
him with the most bewitching earnestness, and with the tenderest, 
most touching epithets, not to desert her; assuring him that he 
possessed her whole heart, and that forsaken by him, life would 
no longer possess a charm for her. While he stood with folded 
arms, and dashed away the tear that gathered on his cheek, she 
reminded him of his solemn vows, and mourned in her despair 
over the happy hours of love, now gone forever. 

Harry took the unhappy girl by the hand, and as he placed a 
purse of gold in it, which she threw upon the earth in disdain, he 
said — "Farewell, beautiful princess, we must this instant part for- 
ever. Be happy, if you can, and forget me." 

As he released her, she leaped to her canoe, turned to gaze 
upon him she so dearly loved, with mingled feelings of the most 
poignant sorrow and regret, then stepped into the canoe and 
pushed off into the stream. Harry's tearful eye followed her re- 
ceding form. But what was his astonishment, when he beheld her, 
as she waved a last adieu, plunge headlong in the water, and dis- 
appear. He wrung his hands in an agony of sorrow, and gazed 
for some time to see her appear on the surface, but alas! he be- 
held the poor distracted girl no more. 

He returned home, but in vain he attempted to banish from his 
mind the scene he had witnessed. Remorse touched his heart, 
and he repented having rejected the love of so noble and so de- 
voted a heart. In the dreams of the night he heard the melting 
accents of her despair at parting, and beheld her drowning strug- 
gles. In his waking hours the memory of poor Manitoo was ever 
present, and he became melancholy. 

Superstition at that period of time, as well as at the present day, 
held sovereign sway over the minds of the great mass of the peo- 
ple. The romantic soul of Harry Dewaldsen was completely un- 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 545 

der the dominion of it; so much so, that no fortune-teller could 
long reside in tlie neighborhood without receiving a visit from him. 
Not far from the spot where the rail road bridge now crosses the 
Brandywine, resided in a low thatched hovel, "Old Kate, the for- 
tune-teller," who had long been a terror to children, and indeed 
to many grown persons; for it was declared that she dealt with 
the devil; could work ''gumber" with roots, by which she put 
spells upon people, and foretell future events. She had but one 
eye, the other, it was supposed, had been put out by Squire 
Throglander, who had loaded his gun with silver and shot at her 
picture, on account of a spell put upon his child, which had fits. 
Kate was a wrinkled, hump-backed, ugly old hag; and she was 
often seen wandering about the country with a bag under her arm, 
though no one professed to have a knowledge of the contents of 
that bag. Some believed it to be the depository of plunder, but 
wiser people averred that it was filled with gumber roots to work 
spells. 

Harry had often visited old Kate, and she, in telling his fortune, 
invariably told him the same story. In her tea-cup of coffee- 
grounds she could plainly see great things in store for Harry. 
She told him he would suffer no misfortune, that he would be the 
husband of a fair Swede, and that his posterity in later days would 
be a disgrace to the country that gave them birth. 

Since Manitoo's death, Harry was far from being happy. The 
memory of her wrongs arose before his mind, and he half resolved 
that he would leave the colony of Delaware, and wander over the 
world that he might forget the past. 

One evening, strolling out of Wilmington in a musing mood, 
he found himself, without design, wandering in the grave-yard of 
the Swedes' church. Seating himself on a rude bench, which had 
been placed between two trees, which then stood near the church, 
but have long since disappeared before the tooth of time, he com- 
menced talking aloud as was his custom, of the course of life he 
intended to pursue; spoke of his design to leave his native town, 
and of the route which he should take. The moon was in her 
first quarter, and illuminated the lonely scene around him; for the 
Swedes' church, though now in the suburbs of the city, was then 
a considerable distance from the town. Gradually he began to 
think of the loneliness of the place; of the dead who were slum- 
bering in their shrouds around him, and of the grave which had 
so recently been made for that beautiful being who had loved him 
with all the undying devotion of woman, and had from wrong and 
69 



546 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

wretchedness perished, a martyr to the passion that absorbed her 
soul. The thought, too, that she had generously saved his life 
from the revengeful arm of Mandika, the young warrior, occurred 
to his recollection, and wrung his soul with anguish. As he 
turned and gazed around him, an indefinable fear came upon him, 
and he shuddered, lest the shade of the martyred Manitoo should 
rise from the gloom of the grave, and upbraid him with his in- 
gratitude for the heroic preservation of his life, and with the in- 
consistency of his vow. Suddenly starting with horror, he ex- 
claimed — "Ha! what do I see!" and trembling in every limb, he 
bent his vision on a female figure that slowly emerged from a re- 
cess of the church. He would have screamed, but the sound of 
his voice died away upon his lips. He would have fled upon the 
wings of the wind, but his strength failed, and he sunk down in 
horror. With a commanding air, the figure approached him, and 
as it passed, he recognized the features of the beautiful Indian 
princess. His glaring eyes involuntarily followed the spectre, as 
it took a circuitous course, and disappeared in the shadowy recess 
of the church from which it had issued. 

Harry was no sooner able to move, than he left the lonely habi- 
tation of the dead with all possible speed. He arrived at home 
almost breathless with terror, and pale as though he had been one 
of the sheeted dead. So ghastly was the expression of his 
countenance, that his mother and sister were alarmed, and led 
him to a couch. 

When the story was told that Harry had seen the spirit of the 
Indian Beauty of the Brandywine, it was generally believed; and 
stout indeed was the heart that would afterwards pass the Swedes' 
church at night. He who was so unfortunate as to be forced to 
pass, carried some talismanic charm, or means of incantation. 
The spirit of the unhappy Indian princess haunted the imagina- 
tion of all the young lovers in the town and country, and children 
trembled by the fireside when the story was told. 

Poor Harry was sick for some time after the event, and so nerv- 
ous did he become, that his sister Julia was under the necessity 
of removing her couch into his room, through the fear that the 
apparition of Manitoo would appear in his chamber. But Harry 
recovered, and determined immediately to leave Wilmington, and 
travel where other scenes would obliterate from his recollection 
those which he had recently witnessed at home. 

Accordingly, bidding adieu to his mother and sister, with many 
tears, he started on his perilous pilgrimage ; for a travel from one 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 547 

city to another, at a distance of two or three hundred miles, was 
a great undertaking, and greater bustle was then made in prepar- 
ing to go from Wilmington to Philadelphia, than is now made in 
the journey from Baltimore to Boston. The mighty giant of steam, 
like Archimedes of Syracuse, is moving the world, and anni- 
hilating time and space; while electro-magnetism is transmitting 
the thoughts of the human mind with the velocity of light. The 
hour is rapidly approaching, when a steam flying machine will 
navigate the air, with all the buoyancy and beauty of a bird. 
Could the wise ancients rise from the tomb of centuries, and be- 
hold the steam engine exerting its Herculean power, even Solo- 
mon himself would be forced to exclaim, "there is something new 
under the sun." 

Harry arrived in Philadelphia, and soon discovered that a ship 
had recently arrived from the East Indies, bringing several East 
Indians with her. His curiosity was excited to notice the simi- 
larity of features and complexion between those and the North 
American Indians, for the streets of Philadelphia then swarmed 
with the children of the forest. Even since the recollection of 
the author, they were to be seen in that city shooting with a bow 
and arrow at tips, which were placed by the citizens in the cre- 
vices of the pavement. 

Having a considerable sum of money with him, Harry resolved 
from the impulse of the moment, to go a voyage to the East Indies. 
But the ship would not sail under four weeks, during which time 
he amused himself in that then comparatively small city. The day 
of departure at length arrived, and Captain Hardy notified him to 
come on board, which he did, after collecting his sea-stores, and 
having made every preparation. 

Little occurred of import, during the passage down the river and 
bay; but a new scene of life opened to Harry, when the gallant 
ship went bounding over the broad bosom of the Atlantic, bending 
in beauty to the breeze, and dashing the foaming billows aside. 
To his romantic soul it was a new world, and he watched the sun 
as he rose and set, scattering his golden light over the heavens, 
with emotions no language can describe. 

Harry's manner became abstracted and taciturn, for he felt as if 
he had done a deadly wrong to a generous heart that beat only 
for him, and had by the force of circumstances been accessory 
to the death of one who had generously saved his life from the 
Indian tomahawk. But notwithstanding his unhappy countenance, 
every one on board became warmly attached to him; particularly 



548 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

ihe two East Indians, who were persons of wealth and distinction 
at home. There was, also, a handsome Indian lad on board, 
named Quashakee, who also conceived a particular regard for 
Harry, on account of similarity of feeling and disposition; and 
often sat for hours watching with him the variegated skies, and 
the distant ships that passed away like spirits on the ocean of 
eternity. If Harry were sick, Quashakee was at his side,' ever 
ready to minister to his wants. So much sympathy did he find in 
the bosoms of these voyagers, that his mind in a measure was 
relieved from its gloomy reflections, and he became comparatively 
cheerful. But alas! how often does one circumstance eventuate 
in many misfortunes, and change the whole current of a man's 
life? After days of calm sunshine, a dark cloud upon the horizon 
appeared, and the watchful eye of Captain Hardy discovered that 
a storm was approaching. Orders were given to put the ship in 
order to meet the crisis, and scarcely were the sails furled, ere the 
wind arose; the billows of the ocean began to roll and break in 
foam ; while fear gradually depicted its outlines on the faces of 
the passengers. Louder and still louder roared the storm, whilst 
the winds lashed the waves into fury, and the laboring ship was 
tossed to and fro, like an egg-shell. Still more furious became the 
tempest towards night; the rigging of the ship was torn to tatters, 
and scattered on the bosom of the mighty deep. 

But the soul of the heroic Harry remained calm and unmoved, 
amid the mighty war of the elements. His romantic eye gazed 
with even delight upon the terrific grandeur and sublimity of the 
scene, and his fearless soul surveyed with a pleasure approaching 
enthusiasm, the mountain billows as they rolled by him, and bursted 
amid the fury of the roaring blast. Awfully grand to his vision 
was the dashing deep, when the darkness of night came down 
upon it, shrouding every thing in, impenetrable gloom, save when 
the lurid lightning leaped along the heavens, and illuminated with 
a fearful glare the foaming surface of the sea. The crazy ship, 
lumbering in the trough of the billows, worked with a quivering 
motion in every joint, and trembled from stem to stern, as with a 
fearful foreboding of her dissolution. But while the other passen- 
gers were groaning with terror, and even the hearts of the hardy, 
storm-beaten mariners were beginning to quail with apprehension, 
Harry, with his head leaning upon his hand, seemed unconscious 
of danger. 

With still more tremendous fury raged the blast, and rolled on 
the roaring billows; when, suddenly, Captain Hardy, who stood 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD 549 

on the quarter deck-holding on with one hand to the tafFrail, cried 
out in the thunder-tones of the trumpet, "Prepare to meet your 
fate — we shall all be lost!" 

The incessant flashes of lightning, that lit up the angry ocean 
with one red flood of flame, revealed to view the affrighted East 
Indians imploring protection from Allah, and the form of Quash- 
akee'clinging in despair to Harry, who heard not his lamentations, 
for they were drowned amid the roar of the sea, and the wild tumult 
of the tempest. The agonizing thoughts of these unhappy beings 
were wandering away to their distant homes, and to the smiling 
faces and green fields that they never expected to see again. 

The helmless ship, quivering to her centre and dashed from side 
to side, suddenly struck with tremendous force against a reef of 
rocks. One loud crash and one wild scream went booming over 
the sea, and in an instant all on board that ill-fated vessel were 
scattered amid the midnight darkness of the deep; nor, save by 
the now occasional flashes of the lightning could they discern the 
floating fragments of the wreck. The long-boat, and the captain's 
gig had both been stove; they could not live amid the terrific 
breakers. 

Harry Dewaldsen was an expert swimmer; but, though the 
terrors of the tempest had in some degree abated, he now saw 
nothing but death before his mental vision ; for he was in that 
most forlorn of all situations, floating on the wide bosom of the 
ocean, surrounded by darkness and storm. For some time he was 
enabled by the strength of his manly limbs to keep above the 
tumbling billows, but at length that strength began to fail; his 
heroic courage gave way to despair, and breathing a prayer to 
Heaven, and wafting a farewell blessing to the beloved friends at 
home, he prepared to perish like a brave man who fears not 
death. Loss of recollection was gradually stealing upon his mind; 
confused ideas wandered through his brain; a sense of sleepiness 
came upon his senses, and as he was sinking into the watery grave 
of millions, a cry of anguish broke upon his dying ear, and he felt 
a human hand grasp him by the hair and draw him to a fragment 
of the wreck, which he seized with the desperate firmness of a 
drowning man. As soon as Harry recovered his scattered senses, 
he discovered, by the voice, that he had been saved by the young 
Indian Quashakee, to whom, in lieu of his kindness and attention 
on ship-board, he had formed a warm attachment. They were 
clinging to a portion of the stern of the ship, and as they went 
drifting over the wide waters, they vainly imagined what their 



550 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

future fate would be. They had been rudely thrown from the ship 
without food; without raiment; save what they had on, and without 
money ; save a number of gold pieces which Harry had in his 
pocket. 

Between midnight and day the storm gradually abated, the dark 
clouds rolled down the horizon, and the majestic moon, like bridal 
beauty, walked up into the glorious hall of heaven, shedding her 
silvery smiles upon the surface of the sea, and illuminating the 
white caps of the weary billows. Forlorn as was the situation of 
Harry, his heart bounded at the scene, and his soul was imbued 
with a sense of sublime pleasure, that one less tinctured with 
romance and the love of the grand and beautiful, could not appre- 
ciate or conceive of. 

When the goddess of the morning, the fair Aurora, unbarred 
the gates of day, and gilded the eastern heavens with a golden 
glow, not a fragment of the wreck, or a trace of the unfortunate 
passengers and crew, could be discovered on the lonely waste of 
waters. Not a white sail in the distance gladdened the sight of 
these two desolate wanderers on the great deep. All, all had 
perished but themselves, and as Harry thought of their distant 
friends, he could not refrain from bursting into tears. 

All day, as they rolled upon the billows of the boundless ocean, 
the eye of Harry was strained to catch a glimpse of some white 
sail in the distance, and every hour seemed an age of anxiety and 
solicitude. They had not a mouthful of any thing to eat, and the 
poor Indian lad Quashakee was famishing for water. 

"It is hard," said Harry, as he looked on the suffering lad, in 
whose dark eye a tear glistened — " it is truly hard that we have es- 
caped the savage fury of the tempest to perish with hunger and 
thirst on the lonely sea, with no kind hand to relieve our wants 
and mitigate our sufferings I I fear not death when it comes with 
no lingering tortures; but oh! how wretched I am when I think of 
the happy home I have left, and of that fond mother and sister 
who are now happy, altogether unconscious of the forlorn condi- 
tion of their unfortunate son and brother." 

The descending sun gradually sunk into his ocean bed, and the 
silvery stars were hung out like lamps in the great hall of heaven; 
but still no distant sail gladdened the sight of these poor wander- 
ers of the sea. Through the long and lonely hours of the night 
they still clung to the fragment of the wreck, agonizing with hun- 
ger and thirst, and fearful of falling asleep, lest they should lose 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 551 

their hold or be devoured in the voracious jaws of some mighty 
monster of the deep. 

The tedious night at last wore away, and the long wished for 
light of day came only to remind them that their hours of anguish 
were not yet ended. How snail-like is the march of time when, 
from sickness, sorrow or suspense, we count its weary momenta 
as they pass? How unlike its rapid flight when joy lights up the 
careless heart, and the bright and beautiful visions of bliss illume 
the soul ? 

Another day was hastening to its termination, and the shadows 
of despair were beginning to darken the brow of Harry, when his 
keen eye caught the glimpse of a vessel in the dim distance. Hope, 
the last tenant of Pandora's box, revived in his heart; and as that 
ship came nearer and nearer, bending to the breeze and beautifully 
bounding like a bird over the billows of the Atlantic, he tore the 
sleeve from his shirt, and tying it with a handkerchief to a long 
strip of the wreck, he hoisted it as a signal of distress. Nearer, still 
nearer came the hope of rescue, as if the signal had been seen by 
those on board and they were bearing down on them. Alas! 
those fond hopes of recognition were illusive, for the ship almost 
within hailing distance now bore up in the wind, and passed by them 
in her rapid flight, as the last rays of the setting sun illuminated 
her flowing canvas. Oh! how severe to the sanguine soul, in the 
hour of anxious anticipation, is hope deferred ? Night was again 
closing around them, and the poor Indian lad had become sick from 
fatigue, exhaustion, and privation. Harry now lost all recollection 
of his own, in his sympathy for Quashakee's situation, and taking 
the handkerchief which he had used in making the signal, he 
lashed his drooping companion securely to the wreck, lest in an 
unguarded moment he should be washed away, and leave him alone 
to die of starvation. He verified the proverb, that " misery loves 
company, "and though miserable as he was with the lad at his side, 
and despairing of ever reaching land, he forcibly felt that he would 
be infinitely more miserable, if fate should snatch from him the 
companion of his hopes and fears. 

Drearily, tediously passed away the night, and when the moon 
sunk behind a dark cloud in the western horizon, leaving the wide 
sea wrapped in tenfold darkness, hope entirely deserted the heart 
of Harry, and he half resolved in his mind that sudden death 
would be preferable to the slow, lingering tortures of suspense he 
was enduring. He had almost determined to open the jugular 
vein and carotid artery, with the knife in his pocket, and mingle 



652 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

his life-blood with the waters, through the horrid fear that in the 
pinching pangs of hunger, one might live to feed upon the flesh 
of the other. His mind was busy with the thoughts of suicide 
when the day dawned, and to his inexpressible joy he found that 
he was floating almost under the very bow of a large brig bound to 
the West Indies. 

But in the excessive joy of his heart he had not noticed, though 
talking to him, that Quashakee's eyes were closed, and that he 
was from exhaustion and hunger gradually sinking into the sleep 
of death. Harry now cried aloud for succor, when a seaman from 
the round-top espied them, and came down to their assistance; 
calling up the slumbering crew, a rope was thrown to Harry, which 
he made fast around the waist of Quashakee, and he was hoisted 
on board in a state of insensibility. In a few minutes he stood 
himself upon the deck, and his quivering lips breathed thanks to 
Heaven for his miraculous preservation. 

The kind-hearted captain on seeing the state in which the In- 
dian lad lay, ordered that he should be conveyed to the cabin, 
where every means were used for his resuscitation. Towards the 
middle of the day he revived, and in the evening had so far recov- 
ered the use of his faculties as to converse. The first words he 
uttered were to inquire where the companion of his dangers and 
sufferings was, nor would he be consoled until Harry stood before 
him, and the poor boy grasped his hand to be certain that he was 
there. He gazed long and tenderly at him, and while his musing 
mind seemed to be wandering back on the perils of the past, he 
covered his face and burst into tears. 

The brig which had so opportunely rescued them from a watery 
grave, was bound, as observed before, to the West Indies, where 
she arrived after a pleasant voyage. Fortunately Harry discovered 
at Havana that a ship would soon sail for New York, and accord- 
ingly took passage with the determination to return home and 
settle himself for life. 

At Havana, Harry became acquainted with a Spaniard named 
Manual Lopez Alvarez Diego, who was ready to sail for New York 
on board the same ship. They became very intimately acquainted, 
and Harry discovered that Diego had a considerable sum of money 
in doubloons, which was fastened around his waist in a belt, Harry 
related to him his own, and Quashakee's misfortunes; and so 
much were the feelings of the Spaniard wrought upon, that he as- 
sured them that they should not suffer as long as he had gold in his 
possession. His regard for the handsome young Indian lad was, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 553 

also, warmly expressed, and Quashakee returned many an ac- 
knowledgment from his very dark expressive eyes. The gener- 
ous Spaniard bestowed upon them a number of costly presents, 
and evinced in all his conduct so noble a soul, that Harry could 
not do otherwise than become deeply attached to him. 

There was another Spaniard on board, whose aspect was not so 
winning; yet he joined the party and endeavored to make himself 
agreeable. Still there was a roughness and uncouth manner 
about him that precluded the possibility of his becoming an inti- 
mate companion. His name was Jose Figaro Rosalva, but his 
history was unknown, save that he had long been a wanderer of 
the sea. 

Such were the passengers of the good ship Pelanquin, Captain 
Davis, from, and for. New York. The passage was interspersed 
with alternate sunshine and storm, but after a long passage they 
all arrived safely in New York, once called by the Dutch New Am- 
sterdam. Harry had amused himself on board in various ways, 
such as carving his name on the handle of the splendid Spanish 
knife, which Diego had given him; sculpturing figures in wood, 
and relating to Quashakee at night the story of his ill-fated love 
for Manitoo, the beauty of the Brandywine ; how his ingratitude 
and cruelty in forsaking her had caused her to drown herself in 
despair, and how remorse and the keenest misery had ever since 
preyed upon his heart. And while he assured Quashakee that he 
felt for her an undying affection, and would sacrifice every thing if 
he could but restore her to life, and once more behold her heaven- 
ly form ; the poor boy, touched at his heart-felt sorrow ; would lean 
his head upon his bosom, and mingle his tears with those of Harry 
as they fell. 

When the passengers landed on the wharf at New York, they 
agreed not to separate; but all repair to the same public-house, to 
which they were conducted by Diego, who was acquainted in that 
city, and particularly with the landlord. Here Deigo, in the pre- 
sence of Mynheer Von Dunderford, the landlord, bade Harry and 
the lad, Quashakee, make themselves easy; assuring them that so 
long as he possessed a doubloon they should not suffer, and related 
to Von Dunderford the story of their shipwreck, sufferings, and 
loss of property. 

At night Diego requested that they might all three be placed in 

one room; but as this was impossible, Harry and Quashakee were 

to sleep in a room next to that occupied by Diego. Fatigued 

with the voyage they all repaired to bed early, and Harry long 

70 



554 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

tossed from side to side, as if disagreeable thoughts were preying 
upon his mind. So uneasy was he, that Quashakee arose from 
his bed to inquire if he were sick, and needed assistance; but 
being answered in the negative, he returned to his couch and soon 
fell into a profound slumber, from which he did not awake until 
the next morning. 

Harry arose at sunrise with a dispirited air and gloomy counte- 
nance, declaring that he had not slept three hours, and that horri- 
ble dreams had haunted his slumbers. Diego was a very early 
riser, and the landlord finding he had not risen in time for break- 
fast, repaired to his room to ascertain what was the matter. Great 
was his horror when he found him lying on his back deluged with 
blood, and cold in death. Von Dunderford was a shrewd, intelli- 
gent Dutchman, and without giving any alarm he repaired to the 
police-office, and related what had taken place. Several officers 
followed him to the house, and discovered that Diego had been 
stabbed to the heart, and that he had received a heavy blow on the 
side of his head, proving that he had not committed suicide. On 
examining the room a large Spanish knife was found partly under 
the bed, as if it had been accidentally dropped in the dark; and on 
the handle was carved the name of Harry Dewaldsen, in beauti- 
fully formed letters. 

Harry, at this moment, was sitting in a melancholy mood in the 
bar-room below, resting his head upon one hand, and looking into 
the face of Quashakee. When the officers came down, and Von 
Dunderford pointed to Harry as the man whose name was on the 
knife, he arose with a calm countenance; but when one of tl '^ 
officers placed his hand upon his shoulder, and told him he wa^ 
his prisoner as the murderer of Diego, his face became pale and 
bloodless; he gasped for breath, and staggered against the wall. 
The quick ear of the Indian lad had caught ihe words of dreadful 
import; he leaped from his chair with a scream, and fell upon the 
floor in a state of insensibility. 

The great agitation of Harry, when charged with the murder 
satisfied the officers that he was guilty ; and though, as soon as 
he recovered self-possession, he protested his innocence in heart- 
wrung, earnest language, yet the officer turned a deaf ear, and 
proceeded to search his person for the gold, which Von Dunder- 
fgrd, the landlord, knew Diego had on the evening previous. Gold 
pieces were found in Harry's pockets ; a beautiful little casket 
containing several jewels, on the lid of which the name of Diego, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 555 

the murdered man, was engraved ; and several other valuable arti- 
cles which were known to have belonged to the same person. 

The next step was to convey Harry to a dark and dismal dun- 
geon. So affected was his mind by the awful charge of imbruing 
his hands in the blood of man, that he could not attempt to refute 
the allegation. When he sat down in his prison, and began to 
reflect upon the horrible situation in which he was placed, he was 
wretched in the extreme. He philosophized upon the force of 
circumstances, and as the clank of his chains rung upon his ears, 
his mind wandered back to happier days, and the dear images of 
his mother and sister rose before his mental vision; and though 
not accustomed to the melting mood, tears gushed from his eyes, 
and he felt that he was unmanned. 

Quashakee, the poor Indian lad, whose heart, though placed in 
the bosom of a savage, knew how to feel; and so great was the 
influence of the tidings that the life of his friend was jeopardized, 
that he was prostrated on a bed of sickness. In the room where 
he was confined, was also confined the Spaniard, Rosalva, who 
had been suddenly struck down with the paralytic attack, com- 
pletely prostrating his nervous system. 

The excitement of the public mind became very great during 
the trial of Harry. Every person seemed to be astonished at his 
cool and collected manner, for he appeared to be more uncon- 
cerned with the issue of the matter, than many of those who stood 
within the pale of the court. Harry perceived from the first that 
there was but little hope for him, as a strong chain of circum- 
stances were against him ; and the attorney against him contended 
that a strong chain of circumstantial evidence was more powerful 
in a court of justice, than the oath of a single individual. 

The bloody knife, with the name of Harry Dewaldsen on the 
handle was arrayed against him, as also the casket in his posses- 
sion, with the name of Diego engraved upon it. Circumstances 
were strongly against him, and there was but little hope of his 
escape. 

The morning of the day on which he was to be tried, he was 
sitting in a melancholy mood, when the massive iron door swung 
back upon its hinges, and the wild scream of a lady broke upon 
his startled ear. 

"My brother! my darling brother! you cannot be, you are not, 
a murderer!" exclaimed Julia, the devoted sister of Harry, who 
had heard of his misfortuae, and left her mother in Wilmington 



556 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORU BARD. 

to see him she so dearly loved. She ran to him the moment she 
entered his gloomy prison-house, fell upon his bosom and fainted. 

While he stood leaning against the wall, and gazing on his 
prostrate sister, a cry was heard in the passage, and the next mo- 
ment Manitoo, the Indian Beauty of the Brandywine rushed into 
Harry's arms, exclaiming that he was an innocent and injured 
man. She who had assumed the character of an Indian lad that 
she might follow his fortunes, had now resumed the female garb, 
and had come to save his life once more. 

Jose Figaro Rosalva, the Spaniard, who had been struck down 
by a paralytic attack and saw the near approach of death, had 
made confession that he had committed the deed ; that he had 
taken the knife from Harry's pocket, during the night, and had 
left it where it was found, that suspicion might not rest on him. 

His confession had been written down, and was now presented 
to the proper authorities, who gave orders for the release of Harry. 
His mind was completely bewildered by the strange events which 
had recently transpired. 

Great was the joy of Julia Dewaldsen, when her brother stood 
before her freed from his perilous situation. And how different 
her feelings with regard to Manitoo, who had overheard the rav- 
ings of Rosalva, and had induced him, in the near approach of 
death, to confess, and thus free an innocent man from his dreadful 
situation. No sooner was Julia informed of the fact that Manitoo 
had indeed saved the life of her brother, than she embraced her in 
a transport of tenderness, declaring that they never would be 
separated during life. 

When they arrived in Philadelphia, Harry begged the hand of 
Manitoo in marriage, which she pledged; but Julia desired that 
the rites might not be performed until they arrived at home, that 
his mother might be a witness to the ceremony. On arriving, 
Harry found that his mother, from distress of mind, had been con- 
fined to her bed; but when she was informed of all that had tran- 
spired, her joy was excessive, and she welcomed Manitoo with all 
the warmth of a mother's heart. 

Preparations were soon made for the celebration of the nuptials, 
and the chief. Undine, was invited to be present on the occasion. 
He rejoiced at once more beholding Manitoo, for she had left him 
to follow Harry, without having communicated her intention. On 
the night that she threw herself into the Brandywine, she had 
taken advantage of the moment when Harry turned from the sight, 
and secreted herself among the bushes on the margin of the stream. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 557 

When the marriage ceremony had been performed, Harry 
thought of the fortune-teller, Kate, and declared that no part of 
her prophecy had been fulfilled. Mandika, the unsuccessful lover 
of Manitoo, on hearing of her union with Harry, disappeared, 
and never was seen afterward. 

From the union of these two celebrated characters, sprang a 
numerous family. Their descendants resided in and about Wil- 
mington, until the tide of emigration began to set strongly to the 
West, when they retired to Ohio, from which State two became 
distinguished members of Congress. The relics of Wild Harry 
of Wilmington and the Indian Beauty of the Brandywine, now 
lie mouldering in one of the grave-yards of that city, after having 
lived long and happily together. 



l^parture of la /aqette. 

He is dashed on the foam of the turbulent ocean, 
Where the dark swelUng tempest in revelry raves; 

But the Brandywine moves with a beautiful motion, 
And bears her loved guest o'er the billowy waves. 

The sea-god has promised to guard his soft pillow, 
When the lightning of heaven illumines the deep, 

And to calm, in its rage, the wild dash of the billow, 
When softly he sinks in the slumbers of sleep. 

And the God of the skies, now enthroned in his power, 
Who has guided his steps 'mid the thunders of war; 

Who has screened him from danger in battle's dark hour, 
And written his name on eternity's car: 

To the land of his sires, to his own native nation, 
Shall the hero of fame, in his splendor restore. 

And the plaudits of millions, fair freedom's oblation, 
Shall re-thunder the caves of old Gallia's shore. 

He has gone to repose in the lap of his mother,* 
To the home of his youth, and the land of his bloom; 

He has dropped at Mount Vernon a tear o'er his brother, 
Who is pillowed in death, in the night of the tomb. 



658 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

He is gone to his country, and never, ah! never, 
Shall America's Eagle o'ershadow the brave; 

He hath left us in hope, but departed for ever. 
For age must consign him to nature's cold grave. 

No mcye shall his path be enamelled with flowers, 
Or the damsels of beauty sing praise to his name; 

But the muse shall exalt it in nature's gay bowers, 
And gild it with gold in the temple of fame. 



Ah! why my friend, why thus distressed. 
And whence the blanch of woe? 

The bursting pang now heaves thy breast, 
And tears unnumbered flow ! 



Thine eye is dim, soft peace has fled 
On wings of withering care; 

Alas ! thy pleasures all are dead. 
In love once blooming fair. 

The night of gloom distracts thy brain, 
Hope, shuddering, leaves thine eye; 

But all ! they will return again, 
Bid joy relieve the sigh. 

Say, has ingratitude's dark stamp. 

Detracted from thy worth; 
Or has gone out religion's lamp, 

Upon this envious earth? 

Has friendship ceased in sweet return. 
The proffered gifts of praise; 

Ah! does thy generous bosom burn, 
For joys of other days? 

O tell me if thy heart doth bleed. 

For some fair cruel maid; 
Who in return thy love hath freed. 

And cold unkindness paid? 

Or hast thou, hopeless, now inurned, 
A partner in Ufe's vale; 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 559 

Who love for love had long returned, 
And cheered with virtue's tale? 

Ah no ! he cried, nny poignant grief, 

Is greater far than this; 
My life is sad — the tale is brief, 

That robbed me of my bliss ! 

My wife was taken yesternight. 

With raging pain and fever; 
Her eye had lost its lustre bright. 

And nothing could reheve her. 

But sad, ah ! sad, for me to say. 

The Doctor gave a pill; 
And, O alas! she rose to-day, 

To grieve my bosom still, 

Hope told me that she would have sung. 

Poor soul in other skies; 
But while I smiled, I heard her tongue, 

"The worm that never dies." 



1 /ragment. 

The night was dark — 
No moon illumined the tempestuous deep, 
Nor bright stars twinkled o'er the vast abyss — 
The fathomless abyss of ocean's waves. 
The winds arose, the billowy tempest raged; 
High heaving to the clouds the sparkling foam, 
And the loud surge lashed heavily the shore. 
Dashing with giant strength the little bark, 
First up, then down, while on the slippery deck, 
The sea-boy raised his humble prayer to heaven. 
And sent his scream, wild, echoing, on the blast. 
Still louder roared the storm, the thunder shook 
The battlements of heaven, while the forked lightning. 
Gleaming o'er the scene, shed dismal horror. 
Scarce did the flash expire, when peals on peals. 
Still louder broke on the astonished ear, 
As tho' the planets were convulsed, and worlds 
Flying, affrighted, from their native fields, 
Were tumbling into ruins. Incessant now 



560 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

The bending arch of heaven's stupendous fabric, 

Curtained with planets, in their oi-bits fixed, 

Appeared one sohd, blazing orb of fire. 

Fast clinging to the reeling mast alone, 

Frantic and wild with horror and alarm. 

Now calling on her God, and now resigned 

To sink ingulphed beneath the watery waste. 

The beauteous Ellen stood. Fast flowed her tears, 

When memory would recall the pleasing hopes 

Of soon arriving home to greet her friends, 

Which she so oft in fancy had indulged. 

High on a cliff that overlooked the sea, 

A rugged rock, defying winds and storms, 

The splendid castle of Alcanzor stood — 

The home of Ellen. On the pebbly beach 

Alcanzor strayed; and grieved, and listened long, 

While every billow brought distracted sighs; 

And, ever and anon, the lightning's flash 

Portrayed the vessel, struggling with the waves; 

And with his glass each moment he beheld 

The frantic Ellen. But blest hope had fled, 

And pity now alone remained to soothe 

The hapless sorrows of a lover's breast. 

Whose anguished cries were drowned amid the roar 

Of the wild billow, and the bellowing winds — 

Whose weeping eyes should never more behold 

The darling object, the intended bride. 

More dear than worlds, than even life itself. 

The storm increased! Tempestuous roared the winds. 

And wilder still did rage the boiling gulf. 

While every wave dashed rudely o'er the bark. 

And lost themselves deep in the liquid gloom: 

Thunder o'er thunder rolhng, died away, 

But quickly followed by severer crash. 

Till from the clouds a darting bolt emerged. 

And swept the mast far on the bubbling spray. 

The next rude surge, in its broad cradle, took 

The weeping Ellen; and the bark went down — 

To rise no more. The midnight hour had passed; 

The gloomy clouds rolled heavily away. 

And in the east pale Luna hung her horns. 

Shedding her beams upon the silent scene 

Where Ellen's beauty found a watery grave, — 

Where Ellen slept unconscious of her doom. 

Silence, eternal silence, now did reign. 

Save when the bubble bursted on the shore. 

Seeming as tho' great nature made a pause, 

And pity melted in a flood of tears. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 561 



Soon will the lovely Spring unfold 

Her blossoms to the breeze; 
And give with fruits of green and gold 

Temptation to the trees. 
Young April with her silver showers, 

And tender tears of dew; 
And beauteous May thro' blooming bowers, 

Their charms again shall shew. 

Delightful Spring ere long shall spread 

The vale with varying green, 
The strawberry and the cherry red, 

In every grove be seen. 
The garden gay and fertile field 

Shall gild the earth again; 
This brings its flowers, and that shall yield 

The golden glittering grain. 

I love to see the blooming bud 

A rich red rose undo; 
The apple blushing as with blood. 

The plum with veins of blue. 
To see the long prolific vine 

Its precious product mould; 
And in the Summer's sunbeam shine 

Large grapes of glossy gold. 

Fair Summer with industrious care 

Shall soon with sweets abound; 
The melon and the mealy pear. 

Lie scattered o'er the ground. 
Profusive Autumn then shall come. 

With ghttering sheaf and grain; 
The season of the gathering home, 

Of gladness and of gain. 

Thus doth the Spring of life come on, 

Its blooming flowers are fair; 
Summer succeeds when Spring is gone. 

With toil, and fruit and care. 
Then Autumn, harvest of the heart. 

The hoarding time of strife. 
Of miserly desire and art; 
Winter arrives and death's keen dart 

Divides the thread of life. 



71 



662 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



A SKETCH FROM LIFE. 

The fair Aurora had undone 

Her glittering gates of gold, 
The brilliant chariot of the sun, 

Just o'er the hills had rolled: 
When Laura, lovely maid, arose, 

Unbarred the cottage door, 
To seek, to soothe, and pity those, 

Misfortune had made poor. 

Like some kind angel swift she flew, 

Rejoicing on her way. 
Unto the lowly cot in view. 

Where few will ever stray: 
And there, sight of woe, she saw 

A soldier sick; he was 
Stretched out upon a bed of straw. 

Who bled in freedom's cause. 

His eye, that once with fire had flashed, 

Was dim with woe and age. 
His breast, that once in strife was gashed, 

Now throbbed with fever's rage; 
His arm, that waved the weapon bright, 

Was paralyzed with pain. 
And Laura wept to see the sight, 

And bathed his burning brain. 

And while she smoothed the humble bed, 

On which the hero lay, 
She held a cordial to his head, 

And charmed his griefs away; 
And by her kind assiduous aid. 

His health and hope restored; 
He lived to bless the generous maid, 

He blest her and adored. 

such is lovely woman's heart. 

Where human woes abound. 
She draws from sorrow's breast the dart. 

And heals the anguished wound; 
Where'er she moves her path is strown 

With sweet eifiection's flowers; 
The man is dead who will not own 

Fond woman's magic powers. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILPORD BARD. 563 



ilkmorm. 



How like the silkworm is the range 

Of man's own being thro' each change 

To age from helpless infancy! 

From death to dread eternity! 

First from the blue and tiny genti, 

Comes forth the ground-woi'k of a worm, 

Demanding food — one kind alone; 

Time passes — see how it is grown. 

Then comes a change — its germhood gone, 

It now a chubby form puts on; 

And grows with such a rapid pace, 

Its change in size we scarce may trace. 

Then comes another change, the germ 

Is now lost in the half-grown worm; 

Then comes the third change, then the last; 

'Tis now of age and boyhood past. 

Seest thou no good resemblance here? 

'Tis work-time now or wild career; 

It now begins with wisdom sage. 

Or to prepare for coming age. 

Or squander time and idly range. 

Unmindful of the eternal change. 

When time recedes with parting breath. 

And life is swallowed up in death. 

See how his thread of life he spins ! 

With what precision he begins ! 

And with what art his silken cell, 

It weaves wherein it soon must dwell! 

So the good man, his soul to save, 

Prepares himself a quiet grave. 

Its life of labor now is passed, 

We see it in its tomb at last, 

Awaiting that most awful day 

Of resuiTection from decay; 

The hour arrives — behold how strange 

It witnesseth the final change ! 

It bursts the tomb, and from the dead 

Waves its proud wings and lifts its head 

With joy, and dances without fear 

Upon its silken sepulchre; 

No food requires it to abate 

Its hunger in its happier state; 

No labor now, but all is joy. 

It shouts and seeks no other employ; 

So when life's fitful fever's o'er, 

Man falls to rise upon that shore 



664 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Where life is peace, and preiise employ, 
And heaven one constant round of joy: 
Like the poor worm his toils are done, 
And years of lasting love begun. 



n Habi], 



WHO REJECTED MY OFPEEING OF FLO^VERS. 

To April's showers, 

May owes her flowers. 
Or barren every bower appears; 

Yet gaudy May, 

In rich array. 
Doth smile at April's tender tears. 

The' April strews, 

With richest hues, 
The path of May, in beauteous bloom; 

Yet May in pride, 

Doth her deride, 
And dance in triumph on her tomb. 

Thus, lady fair, 

The tears of care. 
Which I have often shed for thee, 

Thou dost reject, 

With cold neglect. 
And smile to mark my misery. 

The blooming flowers, 

I brought from bowers, 
To deck thy lucid locks of gold. 

Thou didst refuse. 

And deadly dews 
Fell on the beauteous blossoms cold. 

Lady, the doom 

Of flowers in bloom. 
Too well do mark my bloom of years; 

For tho' the sun, 

Of love begun, 
May^rise in bliss, it sets in tears. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 565 



111 U Sanitq, 

Oh! I have seen a bubble blown 

In beauty on a billow bright! 
Around it lovely landscapes shone, 

And pictured forms of life and light. 
An earth as heaven was painted there, 

The field, the forest, and the lawn; 
But as I grasped, it burst in air. 

The mimic world of light was gone. 

And such is pleasure — we pursue, 

As does the child the butterfly; 
'Tis charming to the distant view. 

But as we grasp, its glories die. 
'Tis crushed the moment that we catch 

The gaudy phantom of the mind. 
And disappointed man, a wretch. 

An aching void can only find. 

Oh ! I have sought frail pleasure long. 

In empty fame and glittering gold; 
I've listened to her Syren song. 

As did Ulysses' ears of old. 
Aye, for one glimpse of glory, I 

Have oft my heart's best wishes given; 
Yea, Tor one glance from her dark eye. 

Would barter e'en my hopes of heaven. 

I've sought the phantom pleasure too 

In the heart's hell, the mad'ning bowl, 
I drank, tho' I beheld in view 

The deep damnation of the soul. 
Canst thou give up thy wife to tears. 

Canst thou neglect thy children's home. 
Blast all the hopes of future years. 

And be a wretch, for what? — for rum? 

Oh God ! 'tis cruel to resign 

All, all thou lovest for mad'ning drink: 
Forsake it then, and bUss is thine, 

Forsake and fly from ruin's brink. 
Think not that I would triumph now, 

Or yet insult thy generous soul; 
Oh! no, I've drank as deep as thou 

The dark damnation of the bowl. 



566 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Where are our friends of earlier years, 

The generous, gifted and the brave; 
Alas, full many have in tears 

Drank deep and filled a drunkard's grave. 
When in my soul the serpent shed 

The venom of his victory, 
With Solomon of old I said — 

All, all indeed is vanity. 

What will it profit if we gain 

A world of wealth, and lose the soul ? 
Ah ! what is glory to the slain ? 

Where are the blessings of the bowl ? 
The pi'oudest potentate must fall. 

Earth's sweetest pleasures quickly flee; 
One hour of virtue's worth them all. 

For all indeed is vanity. 



€^i ihtni of €^xul 



AN OBE. 

Almighty God ! I sing thy power, . 
When in that dark and dreadful hour, 
Thine eye looked down from realms of light, 
And saw creation wrapped in night — 
When sin and woe usurped the world, 
And death's black banner was unfurled; 
When from blest Palestina's shade. 
Religion fled an exile maid. 
And death and darkness ruled the land, 
With Superstition's wizard wand. 
Almighty God ! I sing th^ hour. 
When all death's potentates of power, 
Assembled on the earth, to dare 
The vengeance of thine ai-m made bare, 
And to renounce thy ancient right. 
To rule the world of life and light. 

High on the gorgeous throne of fate. 
Proud Satan sat, enrobed in flame, 

And while on man he gazed in hate. 
Hell smiled and shouted with acclaim; 
And as he spoke, 
Loud thunder."? broke, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 567 

And bloody Crime exposed his awful form; 
While at tlie monarch's side, 
War snatched the sword of pride, 
And plunged at Virtue's bleeding bosom warm. 

Fell Superstition, Satan's child, 
Kneeled at his feet with shrieking wail, 

And cried, all hail ! with visage wild, 
And every Pagan temple echoed, hail ! all hail ! 

With look severe and leering eye. 
Black Bigotry approached the throne. 

And cried, king, thou ne'er shall die, 
Thou, thou canst rule the world alone; 
And more he would have said, 
But from her flowery bed. 
Soft Pleasure leapt with bosom bare. 
Bowed her white knee, and waved her hanging hair. 

Darkness and death exulting rose. 
To hail the monarch of his slaves, 

And at each jDause and gloomy close. 
Hell echoed triumph thro' her deep dark caves. 

But see ! ah see ! there comes afar, 

A radiant light — a shadowy car; 

The hai-ps of heaven resound above. 

With hymns of everlasting love, 

While down the skies, on wings of wind. 

Comes the blest Saviour of mankind. 
Amid the fiends of dark renown. 

The Son of God in glory stood. 

From his high throne hurled Satan down, 

And all his attributes subdued. 
While Superstition gazed, 
And hell stood back amazed, 
He shook the heathen temples with his voice, 
And with a dreadful look. 
The thundering trumpet took. 
And bade the sons of men rejoice ! rejoice ! 

The idol tumbled from the tower. 
And death, O God, was conquered, — thine. 

Hell was the trophy of that hour, 
When Pagcm priests fell from their shrine. 

Hail gift divine, when to the world 

The glorious Gospel was unfurled, 

When death and darkness fell to earth, 

And gave to man a second birth; 

When clouds of error passed away. 

And heaven's own beams illumed the day. 

By me the Saviour's praise be sung, 

Aided by time's eternal tongue. 

Who from Empyrean scenes above 

Came down in everlasting love; 



568 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Who came mankind from death to save, 

And snatched the victory from the grave. 
'Ahnighty God ! thou, w^hose eternal name 

All nations worship, reverence and adore, 
Be thine the wreaths of everlasting fame ! 

Be thine the praise of ages evermore! 
bring the hour when every rite, 

Thy glorious Gospel shall engross, 
The Koran sink to endless night, 

Nor let the Crescent triumph o'er the Cross* 
When on that emblem he expired, 
He who the world with wisdom fired. 
All nature stood aghast and felt the change. 

The Law was void — the prophecy fulfilled. 

And every Jewish heart conviction thrilled, 
While sleeping nations rose to view the conflict strange ! 
'Tis finished now, he cried; 
Bowing his head, he died. 
And earth's firm fabric trembled at his voice! 

But harps of heaven rejoicing rung. 

Angels and men the anthem sung. 
And bade the world, the wicked world rejoice! 

And now, God, send forth his word. 

Till every nation shall have heard 
The joyous Jubilee; 

Send forth to Pharisee and Scribe, 

To every tongue and every tribe. 
The light of Calvary; 

Send forth thy Missionary bands, 

To foreign shores, to foreign lands. 

Till every knee shall bow to One, 

The God, the Father, and the Son, 

And Israel from the Talmud flee. 

To own the Christ of Calvary. 



Oh ! I have lean 'd in deep despair, 

On woman's beating breast; 
And felt that every cruel care 

Was gone, and 1 was blest; 
And I have bask'd beneath her smile, 

When sorrow pierced my soul; 
And felt a greater joy the while. 

Than ever blest the bowl. 

' Alluding to Greece lighting under the banner of the Cross. 



CIk %nm fff Cime. 



■'The car of victory, the plume, the wreath, 
Defend not from the bolt of fate the brave ; 
No note the clarion of renown can breathe, 

T' alarm the long night of the lonely grave, 
Or check the headlong haste of time's o'erwbelming wave." 

Dr. Beattib. 

fNCE more hath the earth completed her circuit 
[round the burning and brilliant luminary of 
'heaven. The wheels of time still roll on, and 
fbury every moment in the dust, the wrecks of 
jformer revolutions. The monuments of art and 
genius; the temples of ambition, pride andva- 
nity, every moment spring up, and are hurled 
to the earth in the path of man, and serve to 
remind him of the mutability of all human 
greatness and all human grandeur. To him 
how pregnant with instruction are the wrecks, 
and ruins, and revolutions of time? They are 
the oracles of ages; they speak like a trumpet 
from the tomb. They speak with a voice of 
thunder to the heart — a voice more impressive 
than the tongue of Tully; more symphonious 
than the harp of Homer; more picturesque than the pencil of 
Apelles. I feel in my soul the grandeur of my exalted theme. I 
see the venerable shade of Time as he stands for a moment on the 
pedestal of years; his white locks streaming in the winds of winter; 
his aged hand pointing to the ruins of empires, and his trembling 
form bending over the tombs of Oriental genius, where the lamp 
of glory still burns, and the light of immortality streams. 

Roll back the billowy tide of time! unroll the mouldering record 
of ages! What scenes are presented to the startled imagination 
of man! He beholds his own destiny, and the doom of his noblest 
achievements. He builds the colossal temple of his renown; he 
dedicates it to other ages; it stands on a rock, and bathes its high 
72 




670 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

battlements in the blue clouds of heaven ; but, behold ! triumph- 
ant Time hurls it with all its grandeur to the dust. So it is with 
man himself, whose hot and hurried existence precipitates the 
hour of his own dissolution. And so it is with the empires of the 
earth; they rise, flourish and pass away, as if they had never been. 
Where now is ancient Egypt, the land of science and sacred 
recollections? Where are her thousands of cities; her Thebes; 
her Memphis; her oracle of Ammon? The red arm of the Goth 
and the Vandal hath levelled them with the dust: the serpent now 
inhabits the temple where the worshiper once bent the knee of 
adoration; the oracle hath been silent for ages, and the priestess 
long since fled from her falling shrine. And where are the cloud- 
capt pyramids of Egypt, the wonder of the world ? Alas ! they 
stand as mournful monuments of human ambition. But where 
are the kings who planned, and the millions of miserable slaves 
who erected them? Gone down to the grave; the rank weed 
waves over the sepulchre of their mouldering bones. And such 
shall be the fate of those pyramids which have stood for ages as 
the beacons of misguided ambition; the wave of time shall roll 
over them, and bury them for ever in the general mausoleum 
of ages. 

And hath all the glory and grandeur of the world thus yielded 
to the victorious tooth of Time? Go seek an answer amid the 
wrecks of Palmyra, Baalbec and Jerusalem. Behold, the city of 
God hath fallen; through her tottering temples and ruined battle- 
ments the shade-born beetle wheels his dreary flight, and the roar- 
ing lion of the desert hath made his lair in the sepulchre of the 
Saviour. The musing traveller in vain searches for the splendid 
temple of Solomon; its crumbling columns are beneath his feet; 
its sublime imagery is pictured in the landscape of imagination, 
but the glory of the world hath departed for ever. Oh, where are 
the millions of once active beings who inhabited the sacred city, 
and whose voices once made the temple vocal with the songs of 
praise? Alas! they are lost amid the undistinguishable wrecks of 
time. Their bones are bleaching on their native hills, even more 
desolate than their once celebrated city. 

Time, like Death, is an impartial conqueror. The monuments 
of genius and the arts fall alike before him in the path of his irre- 
sistible might. He hath uprooted the firm foundations of greatness 
and grandeur; nor less hath he desolated the gardens of Oriental 
genius. Methinks I see him pointing with triumph to the totter- 
ing temples of Greece, and smiling at the ruins of Athens and 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 671 

Sparta, the homes of that illustrious philosopher who gave learn- 
ing to the imperial son of Philip, and where Solon and Lycurgus 
gave laws to the world. But these cities are in ruins; their philo- 
sophers are dumb in death; the Academy, the Porch, and the 
Lyceum no longer resound with the doctrines of Plato, Zeno, and 
their illustrious competitors. Their fame alone has survived the 
general wreck. What a lesson is this for the growing empires of 
the earth ? Greece, the glory of the world, the bright luminary of 
learning, liberty and laws, prostrate in the dust; her light of 
genius and the arts quenched in the long night of time; her phi- 
losophers, heroes, statesmen and poets mingling with the frag- 
ments of her fallen grandeur. Go to the temple of Diana, at 
Ephesus, and the oracle of Delphos, and ask the story of her 
renown, the story of her dissolution. Alas! that temple hath long 
since dissolved in a flood of flame, and the last echo of that oracle 
hath died on the lips of ^olus. But she fell not before the flam- 
ing sword of Mahomet without a struggle. It was the last expir- 
ing struggle of a brave and illustrious race, and her fall was like 
that of the Colossus at Rhodes; she was recognized alone by the 
fragments of her renown. When the conquering arm of Rome 
spread the imperial banner above her walls, her literature and 
learning survived the fall: but when the second time she fell be- 
neath the Tartar horde, the last gleam of Grecian glory was extin- 
guished in Byzantium's tomb. 

Mournful to the mind of man are the records of departed great- 
ness. Where is the imperial city of the Ccesars, the once proud 
mistress of a subjugated world? She lies low, but still mighty in 
the dust. Methinks I am seated amid the melancholy ruins of 
Rome. Around me are strewed the crumbling fragments of other 
ages, and before me are the tumbling temples once hallowed by 
the footsteps of the Caesars. But where is the cottage of Romu- 
lus, the golden palace of Nero, and the shrine of Apollo and the 
Muses? They are mingling with the wrecks of other times. And 
where is the great Roman Forum, in which the thunders of 
Cicero's eloquence once struck terror to tyrants? There the shep- 
herd-boy roams, and the fleecy flocks now feed. There, where 
the Tribunal and the Rostrum, the Comitium and the Curia, once 
stood, the lean lizard now crawls, and the rank grass now waves 
in the night breeze. Those walls are now silent, where the tongue 
of Tully once thundered and the applause of listening senates 
reverberated. And where is that stupendous pile, the Coliseum, 
which stood in ancient days like a mountain of marble, and where 



572 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

the strong-armed gladiator bled, and the untamed tigers of the 
forest died? Behold, it still stands tottering in decay; but the 
thousands of spectators have departed, and the thunders of ap- 
plause have died in echoes along the ruined arches. The red sun 
now goes down and sheds his last ray upon its gray battlements, 
and the mellow moon-beam glimmers through the ivy-crowned 
walls and gloomy galleries. The footsteps of the solitary traveller 
now echo alone where the mighty Caesars once applauded, and 
the clash of the combat sounded. But is this all? Alas! Rome 
is eloquent in ruins; the city of the seven hills is strev^ed with the 
fragments of other ages. Go muse over the fallen forums of Tra- 
jan, Nerva and Domitian; a few pillars of Parian marble alone 
remain to tell the world that they once have been. Go and gaze 
on the ruins of the palace of the Cjesars; descend into the cata- 
combs, and ruminate amid the bleaching bones of the early Chris- 
tians, persecuted by the demon of superstition even to death. Go 
climb the lofty towers of Rome, and survey the melancholy me- 
mentos of other times and other men. And was this the mighty 
Rome that once stood against the legions of Carthage, led on by 
the victorious Hannibal? It is the same, though fallen. And 
where is Carthage? Buried in the vortex of oblivion. Could the 
shades of the immortal Cicero, Horace and Virgil revisit the earth, 
and stray through those scenes which they have immortalized in 
song and eloquence, how would they be struck with the mutability 
of all human grandeur! 

O Time, mighty is the strength of thy arm! The wonders of 
the world have fallen before thee. Witness, yc walls of Babylon, 
covered with aerial gardens, and thou great statue of Olympian 
Jove. The most celebrated cities of antiquity have been buried 
beneath the irresistible waves of time. Go read an example in 
the fate of Syracuse, the city of Archimedes, whose single arm 
repelled the hosts of Rome, and dared to move the world if he 
might have foundations for his feet. That splendid city is in ruins; 
her philosopher sleeps in the dust; and where are his mighty 
engines of war? They are swept from the recollection of man. 
Go and read another example in the fate of far-famed Troy. Seek 
there for the palaces of Priam, once illumined with the smiles of 
the fickle though beautiful Helen, for whom Sparta fought and 
Troy fell. Alas! those palace halls are silent, and the towers of 
Ilion lie level with the dust. Old Priam hath long since departed 
from the earth, and the graves of Paris and his paramour are un- 
known. The mighty Hector, too, the brave antagonist of Achilles, 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD, 573 

is no more. The glory of the house of Priam hath departed for 
ever. The invaders and the invaded sleep together in the common 
mausoleum of time, and their deeds live only in the tide of Ho- 
mer's song. 

Such are a few instances of the ravages of time. Nor less hath 
our own loved land been the scene of desolation. Here may be 
seen the ruins of an Indian empire, more extended than the 
empires of the east; and though they were the children of the 
forest, and though they left no monuments of sculpture, paintinw 
and poesy, yet great were they in their fall, and sorrowful is the 
story of their wrongs. They once had cities, but where are they? 
They are swept from the face of the earth. They had their temple 
of the sun, but the sanctuary is broken down, and the beams of 
the deified luminary extinguished. It is true they worshiped the 
Great Spirit and the genius of storms and darkness; the sacred 
pages of revelation had never been unrolled to them ; the gospel 
of the Saviour had never sounded in the ears of the poor children 
of the forest. They heard the voice of their God in the mornino- 
breeze; they saw him in the dark cloud that rose in wrath from 
the west; they acknowledged his universal beneficence in the 
setting sun, as he sunk to his burning bed. Here another race 
once lived and loved; here, along these shores, the council-fire 
blazed, and the war-whoop echoed among their native hills. Here 
the dark-browed Indian once bathed his manly limbs in the river 
and his light canoe was seen to glide over his own loved lakes. 
Centuries passed away, and they still roved the undisputed mas- 
ters of the western world. But at length a pilgrim bark, deep 
freighted from the east, came darkening on their shores. They 
yielded not their empire tamely, but they could not stand against 
the sons of light — they fled. With slow and solitary steps they 
took up their mournful march to the west, and yielded, with a 
broken heart, their native hills to another race. They left their 
homes and the graves of their fathers to explore the western woods, 
where no human foot had ever trod, and no human eye ever pene- 
trated. From time to time they have been driven back, and the 
next remove will be to the bosom of the stormy Pacific. Unhappy 
children! the tear of pity has been shed over your wrongs and 
your sufferings. What bosom but beats with sympathy over the 
mournful story, of their woes? As a race of men, they are fast 
fading from the face of the earth, and ere many centuries shall 
have passed, they will have been swept from the annals of ages. 
Ere long the last wave of the west will roll over them, and their 



574 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

deeds will live only in the traditions they shall have left behind them. 
The march of mind hath been to them the march to the grave. 
Every age they have rapidly declined, and a lingering remnant is 
now left to sigh over the ruins of their empire, and the memory 
of their brave progenitors. The golden harvest now waves over 
the tombs of their fallen fathers, and the forest that once echoed 
the war-dance is now covered with the rising city. Where the 
wigwam once stood, the tall temple, dedicated to God, now glit- 
ters in the setting sun ; and the river, unrippled but by the Indian 
canoe, is now white with the sails of commerce. And when they 
shall have passed away — when the last Indian shall have stood 
upon his native hills in the west, and shall have worshiped the 
setting sun for the last time — perhaps some youth may rove to the 
green mound of Indian sepulture, and ask with wonder what 
manner of beings they were. How must the poor child of the 
forest weep, and how must his heart throb with anguish, when he 
muses on the ruins of his race, and the melancholy destiny of his 
children? The plough-share hath passed over the bones of his 
ancestors, and they sleep in the land of strangers and of the con- 
querors of their dying race. Methinks I see the stately Indian, 
as he bends from the brow of the misty mountain, and surveys 
with a swelling heart the once extended limits of the Indian em- 
pire. The grief of years is in his soul, and he bends his knee in 
meek submission before the Great Spirit in the clouds. Unhappy 
child ! — my soul mourns over the ruined hopes of your fading race. 



C^nng|ii£ 



There's music, when at morn, tlie wild wind's sighs 
A concord in the green old woodlands wake; 

There's music, when at eve, some flute-note dies, 
In distance, o'er the lucid moonlit lake. 

And I have sat, romantic Brandywine, 

Upon thy rocks the birds' sweet hymns to hear, 

In the great church of nature, — notes divine, 
Discoursing music to my raptured ear. 

But never hath the poet's spirit hung 

On tones so touching, when they softly roll, 

As those that fall from witching woman's tongue, 
Bathing in bhss the enchanted listener's soul. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 575 



Soenjamin /rnnklin, 



He was the glory of his age, 

The wonder of mankind; 
Statesman, philosopher and sage, 

A man of mighty mind; 
In living light the hand of fame 

Recorded his renown ; 
To millions of mankind his name 

Shall still be handed down. 

From pinching penury he sprung. 

And step Ijy step arose 
Where learning's awful accents rung, 

And triumphed o'er his foes; 
Amid the Fathers of the free, 

The mighty statesman stood; 
The friend of man and liberty, 

The blessed gift of God. 

Amid philosophers he shone. 

In science' halls of pride; 
To all the brilliant nations known, 

O'er old Atlanta's tide: 
Error in science doomed to fall, 

By his proud hand was hurled: 
His wond'rous powers astonished all 

The wise men of the world. 

The mysteries that Nature shrouds, 

To him were freely given: 
He snatched the lightning from the clouds, 

The thunderbolt of heaven; 
In majesty of mind he reigned, 

Bade nature's laws conform; 
He raised his daring hand, and chained 

The spirit of the stomi. 

Like mighty Jove then stood the sage, 

Astonished in his jjride; 
The terror of the tempest's rage 

Was trembling at his side: 
Fame, from Olympus' lofty height, 

Beheld his glorious march; 
And wrote his name in hues of light. 

On heaven's mighty arch. 



576 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 



lenrq Clatj, 



When in the south a civil war 

Came like a cloud of night; 
And carnage leaped into her car, 

To seek the field of fight; 
When sons of those immortal sires, 

Who bled at Bunker Hill, 
Rushed forth to light their battle-fires, 

A brother's blood to spill; 

When from the vault of Vernon first 

A cry was heard aloud; 
And the word Peace, in thunder burst 

From many a bloody shroud; 
When swords leaped to the hero's hand. 

And glittered in our gaze; 
And terror reigned throughout the land. 

As in those by-gone days; 

The Solon of the Senate stood, 

Alone and undismayed; 
And for his much loved country's good. 

The flag of peace displayed; 
High in the forum and afar, 

His mighty mind he cast; 
Carnage fell from the crimson car. 

The storm of war was past. 

Unearthly eloquence then broke 

Upon the listener's ear; 
The Senate shouted as he spoke, 

And wondering leaned to hear; 
Trembling they saw that hope was nigh, 

And hailed the happy day; 
The thunders in the southern sky. 

Rolled peacefully away. 

The wise man of the west arose, 

And with a Tally's tongue, 
Silenced the voice of freedom's foes; 

A rainbow round us hung; 
A mighty nation saw the deed, 

The flag of peace unfurled; 
Europe beheld and gave the meed 

Of an admiring world. 



WRITINGS OP THK MILFORD BARD. 577 

The pen of gold, the hand of Fame 

From her high temple took, < 

And wrote his never-dying name 

In Time's eternal book: 
With all the fathers of the free, 

He shall in glory rest; 
By millions yet unborn shall be, 

Thro' future ages, blest. 

No marble monument he needs, 

1*0 crumble and decay; 
The mem'ry of his mighty deeds 

Can never pass away; 
Within a nation's heart enshrined, 

SarcojDhagus sublime ! 
His glorious monument of mind 

Knows not the touch of Time. 



THE AMERICAN LYCUEGUS IN LEARNING, LIBERTY AND LAW. 



'Tis not alone in lofty halls. 

Where learning sits enshrined. 
His eloquence sublimely falls. 

And marks his mighty mind; 
But in the temple of the free 

His thunder tones have rung — 
His father's love of liberty 

Falls from his tuneful tongue. 

Sublime in sentiment and soul, 

To him all wreaths belong; 
His polished periods richly roll 

Along the chords of song: 
He wakes to war the mournful wire 

On Ireland's lovely plains; 
He wakes to liberty his lyre. 

And weeps o'er Erin's chains. 

Whether in council or at coui't, 
Or at the harp or hall— 

Whether in seriousness or sport. 
His graceful accents fall — 

73 



578 WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

He is in grandeur still the same; 

Time hath no merit hurled — 
His trophies, treasured up by Fame, 

Are wonders of the world. 

Time can no triumph o'er him own, 

Though snows his brow may bind; 
Reason still sits upon her throne, 

The monarch of his mind; 
The glory of his by-gone hours, 

Through ages yet shall last; 
Fame gathers up his present flowers, 

To bloom with all the past. 

Ah ! had he lived in that proud day, 

Ere Greece became the grave 
Of glorious men, long passed away, 

The brilliant and the brave. 
The marble cenotaph sublime, 

The column and the crown. 
Would still transmit, to future time, 

His record of renown. 

Yet while the love of liberty, 

Of learning and of song. 
Shall warm the proud hearts of the free, 

Or shall to Fame belong, 
The mem'ry of his magic mind 

Shall wander o'er the wave, 
And win from millions of mankind 

A garland for his grave. 



Imtti of lo^ii (hi\m\] %hmB, 

Another brilliant star has disappeared, 

From the great mental system, and has left 

A mighty void, which ages may not fill; 

A glorious planet hath been quenched, which long 

The intellectual concave had illumed, 

With lustre uneclipsed by other orbs. 

Yea! a great sun, round which full many a star, 

Of minor brilliance, circulating, shone 

But with reflected light, is now no more. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 579 

He was, indeed, a wondrous man, whose mind 

Seemed, without effort, to aspire and soar 
Thro' all the fields of intellect, and drink 

Deep inspiration from all founts of thought. 
In all things, intuition seemed to mark 

The progress of his mental march ; for all 

The garlands learning glories in, were given 

To grace his noble brow; and at his feet. 

Fame laid the trophies of immortal genius. 

The halls of learning, which thro' life he trod, 

Still bear the mementos of his mighty mind; 

And the proud monument his genius reared, 

Untouched by the corroding tooth of time. 

Will stand amid the storms of centuries, 

A model and memorial to mankind, 

Bearing a record of his bright renown, 

And of his deathless deeds. 

In the Pantheon of illustrious men. 

He stood the Olympian Jupiter, whose tongue 

Wielded the thunder-bolts of eloquence — 

The lightning flame of freedom, which went forth 

To blast the oppressor, and redress the wrongs 

Of injured innocence, long groaning 'neath 

The galhng yoke of servitude and toil. 
Amid the statesmen of his native land 

He shone conspicuous, and the helm of State 

Held with a master-hand. But not alone 

Was he illustrious in eloquence. 

In statesmanship, philanthropy, and zeal 

For learning, hberty, religion, law; 

But he was foremost of that glorious band, 

Now fighting bravely for reform, in all 

That is connected with the good of man. 

And not alone did listening Senates lean 

When, with a Tully's tongue, he thundered forth 

Sublimest strains of eloquence; but oft 

He woke the lyre to liberty, and sung 

Of Erin's earlier days and heroes brave. 

Nature to him was liberal, for she gave 
Her brightest talents, which have been improved 
Beyond tha usual measure: but, alas! 
Freedom's great champion is no moi-e — that mind. 
Which was a world within itself, is gone 
Back to its great Creator; and the light 
It shed in brilliance on mankind, is quenched 

In the lone gloom of the grave. But still he lives 

Lives in the hearts of millions, and while time 
Shall last, his virtues will survive, and be 
Beacons and blessings, through all coming years, 
To millions yet unborn. 



680 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 



lantEl ?0Fbter. 



THE DEMOSTHENES OF AMEllICA. 

No college halls his feet have trod — 

No Alma Mater boasts his name — 
But by the glorious gift of God, 

The son of genius rose to fame: 
By native merit of the mind, 

He graced the records of renown; 
His deeds to millions of mankind 

By Time shall be transmitted down. 

Fame to her temple took the sage. 

And wrote — her record to adorn — 
Webster, the glory of the age, 

And wonder of a world unborn ! 
Carved in her columns shall remain 

His name in characters of fire; 
In forum and in Freedom's fane, 

The mightiest minds shall yet admire. 

I saw him in the Senate stand. 

Like Jove, with all his thunder rods, 
His terrors, with a mighty hand, 

Hurling among the trembUng gods: 
The Senate trembled as he spoke 

In tones of thunder — now of mirth; 
Now from his lips the lightning broke, 

And crushed corruption to the earth. 

With Herculean hand he rent 

The rattling chains of slavery, 
And round the Senate nobly bent 

The rainbow rays of liberty. 
Pleased, with his own immortal powers. 

He stretched again his liberal hand. 
And scattered fancy's fairest flowers 

In beauty o'er a smiling land. 

Where England's lofty temples tower, 

Amid her halls his voice was heard; 
Her men of mind have felt his power, 

And starting, wondered at each word! 
For though his fame had gone before, 

And shed in all her halls his light, 
Admiring now, they marvelled more, 

That they had known but half his might. 



WRITINGS OP THE MILFORD BARD. 

Time shall his temples still adorn 

With wreaths that must for ever bloom, 
And men of ages yet unborn 

Shall mark the trophies of his tomb; 
Millions shall bow before his shrine, 

When tombs and temples have been luirled, 
And own his eloquence divine. 

The glory of the western world. 



€\}t liibiln, 

AND DEATH OF JOHN ADAMS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
VVhioli occurred simultaneously on the Fiftieth Anniversary of American Independence. 

High o'er a hundred hills of fire 

I saw the blazing brand; 
A nation lit the funeral pyre, 

The funeral filled the land; 
Fame held the trump of triumph high. 

To sound Oppression's doom; 
The shouts of men swept thro' the sky, 

And hailed the tyrant's tomb. 

The cloud of war had rolled to rest. 

Far in the ocean flood; 
The sun that lingered in the west, 

Had long since set in blood; 
And down the tide of time afar, 

Full many a bark had gone; 
Since whirlwinds wheeled the crimson car, 

And war's dread blast was blown. 

It was the glorious Jubilee, 

The birth-day of the brave; ■.. 
The advent of blest Liberty 

From slavery to save; 
But ah ! amid the festive halls. 

Death held his red arm high, 
The pride of fame and freedom falls. 

Two glorious patriots die. 



582 WRITINGS OP THE MILPORD BARD. 

Ten thousand hearts have mourned the doom, 

And wept for Washington; 
Ten thousand hands shall strew thy tomb, 

Immortal Jefi'erson ! 
And Adams, thy renown sublime, 

A hundred harps shall raise, 
While sounds the trumpet tongue of Time, 

Thy plentitude of praise. 



Kn^n M, Clai]t0n. 

Thou son of genius, glory of our State, 

No song of fulsome flattery I raise; 
In every march of mind thou hast been great. 

And worthy of all patriotic praise. 

Like some tall oak, defying storms of Time, 
The monarch of the mountain in its might; 

I've seen thee stand, while eloquence sublime 

Pour'd from thy lips, like streams of liquid light. 

The walls of Washington have oftimes rung 

Thy tones, that listening Senates lean'd to hear; 

Tones that were sweet as fell from Tully's tongue 
In Rome's proud forum, chaining every ear. 

Well may fair Del'ware sound afar thy fame! 

Well may the "Banner State"* thy pjean breathe! 
For Fame already doth around thy name. 

The garland of the Statesman's glory wreathe. 

Thou art her Ajax, by thy councils wise, 
She in her independence stands alone; 

Unlike her sister States, she dares to I'ise, 
And cry aloud — this land is all my own ! 

Thou son of genius, 'tis not now I sing 
Thy praise in party spirit, but in truth; 

Permit me now a garland bright to bring 
To grace thy brow, thou schoolmate of my youth. 

'The State of Delaware i? now thus designated in the city of Baltimore. 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 583 



The terror of Europe has gone to his rest, 

In the pride of his power and glory; 
He sunk Hke a star in the waves of the west, 

But he lives on the pages of story. 

He rose like the sun from the billowy Hood, 

To the deeds of his early devotion; 
Like the moon he went down in a billow of blood, 

On the breast of an isle in the ocean. 

In the field, when he stood in his frenzy alone, 

The foeman fled from him affrighted; 
The Bourbon beheld him on Gallia's throne, 

With the crown and the crosier united. 

From the throne of the Stuart, to that of the Czar, 

The knell of his vengeance resounded; 
He sent forth his thunder from Victory's car, 

And the proudest of princes confounded. 

He levelled his hghtnings at Austria and Spain— 

At the Holy Alliance assembled; 
He sounded the knell of his vengeance again, 

And Europe, still tottering, trembled. 

Like the comet, the brightest amid milhons of stars, 

To Moscow he marched a Banditti;* 
He seated himself on the throne of the Czars, 

Midst the flames of a sinking city. 

'Twas the first of his fall— but the giant again, 

Hope's promises dared to rely on; 
But the Corsican Tiger, on Waterloo's plain, 

Was the victim of Albion's Lion. 

He fell like a star thro' the heavens, at night, 

In the blaze of its beautiful splendor; 
But the brilliance, that beamed on the path of his might, 

Struck the nations of Europe with wonder. 

He has gone to his rest, from the turmoil of war. 

On an isle in the dark swelling ocean; 
Seven willows now weep o'er his ashes, afar 

From the scenes of his splendid devotion. 

'A designation, by a kite writer, of Napoleon's army. 



584 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Tlie terror of Europe has gone to his rest, 
In the pi'ide of his power and glory; 

He sunk like a star in the waves of the west, 
But he lives on the pages of story. 



SSoHnnr, 



I SAW a mother lead her son 

High up the hill of fame; 
And point to deeds of glory, won 

For many a shining name. 
And as the youth, with lips apart, 

Gazed on the temple high, 
The fame of FrankUn touched his heart, 

And caught his kindling eye. 

Go ! emulate your noble sires, 

The musing mother said, 
And feel the flame of Freedom's fires, 

Like these, the mighty dead. 
She said — with Gothic triumph turned, 

See there, she cried, my son; 
The youth, while yet his bosom burned. 

Beheld great Washington. 

Mother, the warrior deals in blood ! 

The youthful hero cried; 
But in his country's cause he stood! 

The mother quick replied; 
His valor sprung from virtue, he 

Too fought for virtuous fame; 
Behold his wreaths of liberty ! 

And bless his noble name. 

She spake, and swift the trump of war. 

Swept wildly through the land; 
Her son flew to the fight afar, 

And waved his daring hand; 
And when the shout of victory rose, 

He cried, my mother dear, 
The wreaths of conquest bind my brows,- 

Behold thy hero here ! 



WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 686 

Fame blew the blast to Europe's shore, 

Behold ! behold ! she cried, 
Another Washington shall soar 

The height of human pride. 
Europe beheld, of liberty, 

Far in the south, the star; — 
The world proclaimed the victory 

Of glorious Bolivar. 



47 



Tis sweet to think in after years, 
On those we prized or deeply loved; 

Though many a tide of tender tears. 
Have oft our fond affection proved. 

'Tis sweet, when round the turret moans 
The north wind, and tlie snow descends, 

To listen to those solemn tones, 
That seem to grieve for absent friends. 

Ah! oft I sit, when dim night throws 
Her murky mantle o'er the earth; 

To dream of happier days, and those 
Whom once I prized above all worth. 

And oft, when on yon cold pale star 
I gaze and weep, I think of one 

Who sleeps within her tomb afar, 
Unconscious of the heart she won. 

Oh ! she was fair, for to her brow. 

An angel's purity was given; 
Methinks I see her dark eye now, 

Beaming with all the charms of Heaven. 

Her form and features wore a grace, 
That none but angels ever wore; 

Shall I behold that heavenly face, 
And bow to that fair form no more? 

Said I her tomb? — Nay, in this breast. 
Grief only o'er her grave hath knelt; 

There sleeps the vow which once she blest. 
There pines the passion once I felt. 



586 WRITINGS OF THE MILFORD BARD. 

Oh! there is in the brightest smile, 
Deceit and doubt and fancied fears; 

But, ah ! in grief there is no guile, 
There is no treachery in tears. 

The loveliest lips may oft betray, 
The brightest eye too oft deceives; 

The tongue that wins the soul away, 
May blast when most the heart beheves. 

Oh! tell me not the gay heart feels, 
Or that the sunny brow beguiles; 

More truth affection's sigh reveals. 
One tear is worth £\ thousand smiles. 

Oh! Mary, when within the grave. 
With thousands I shall he forgot; 

One pensive tear from thee I crave, 
One sigh breath 'd o'er the silent spot. 



%u\ TintB of \^t §krh, 

ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND. 

My weary head must soon repose 

Upon its bed of clay; 
For heavy, heavy are the woes 

That cloud my life's young day. 

I soon shall sleep to wake no more. 
Till heaven's loud trump shall sound; 

My harp the winds will soon sweep o'er, 
Or dashed, fall to the ground, 

The Muses oft in yonder cell. 
Have taught me music's strain; 

And I have loved the Nine full well — ■- 
The solace of my pain. 

My lyre is on the willow hung. 

It sighs no more its lays; 
Its strings, bewildered, are unstrung, 

The north wind thro' it plays. 



writhntgs of the milford bard. 



68T 



All, all is lost, to me so dear, 

Save ruins and a name; 
The sigh is mine, and mine the tear, 

But not the wreath of fame. 

Yet will I not forget in death, 

Thy generous love to me; 
I'll bless thee with my latest breath — 

Yea, through eternity. 

God grant that you may never feel, 
The ills that I have Jfnown; 

But may life's current softly steal 
Where sweetest flowers are strown. 




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Desire to invite particular attention to the following list of Standard School Books, of their own publication 
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Kerney 's Catechism History of the U. States.. 12 * Kerney 's Mridgment of Murray's Grammar 

First Class Book of History 25 and Exercise 15 

Compendiiim of .indent and Modern Introduction to Colimbian .Arithmetic. 13 

History 75 Columbian .Arithmetic 38 

* This Grammar has been introduced into the Public Schools of BalUmore. 

Irving' s Series of School Catechisms, in Imparts. Revised by M. J. Kerney, Esq. 

Catechism of Astronomy 13 Catechism of Mythology 13 Catechism of Roman History . 13 

Botany 13 History United Stales . . 13 Jewish ..intiquities 13 

Practical Chemistry. . . .13 Grecian History 13 Grecian .^intiquities . . . .13 

Classical Biography 13 History of England ... 13 Roman .Antiquities 13 

Catechism of Sacred History — abridged 13 Murray's English Grammar — complete... .20 

Fredet's Ancient History, from the disspersion of the Sons of Noe, to the change of the Roman 

Repubhc into an Empire 88 

Fredet's Modern History, from the coming of Christ to the year of our Lord 1850 88 

These two volumes form a complete connection or continuous chain of historical events from the creation of 
the world to the year 1850. 

McSherry's History of Maryland, with Questions, &c 75 

Office of the Commissioners of Public Schools, 
Messrs. John Mdrphy & Co. Baltimore, Feb. 10, 1852. 

Gentlemen,— The Commissioners of Public Schools, after a careful examination, have unanimously adopted 
McSherry's History of Maryland, Abridged, for use in the Schools under their supervision, believing it to be ad- 
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Epitome Historice, Sacrm 30 Biblische Geschichte des Mten und J^euen Tes- 

Viris Illustribus Roma 38 tamentes 25 

Phadri Fabula 30 Silabario Castellano, para el uso de los Minos. 25 

Selectm Ovidli Fabulce 38 Silabario Castellano, para el uso de las Jfinas. 25 

Fables Choisies de La Fontaine 63 Elementos de Sicologio, Elements of Psycho- 

A. B C und Buckstabir und Lesebuch, German logy 75 

Primer 13 Pizarro's Dialogues, Spanish and English. . .75 

Katholischer Katechismus, Gar. Catechism. . .19 Catechism of Scripture Histoi-y — in Press. 

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